


Barisi Bedtime Stories

by AHumanFemale



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, As seen on Tumblr, BDSM, Bondage, Developing Relationship, Drabbles, Edging, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Major Character Illness Warning, Pre-Barisi, Smut, Spoilers, episode tags, multiple AUs, oneshots, tags to be updated as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-01-04 13:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 37,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12169491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHumanFemale/pseuds/AHumanFemale
Summary: Named because I write these instead of sleeping.A place for me to publish drabbles/prompts given on Tumblr.   Usually with a little more editing.  These are incredibly variable and include multiple AUs.  Everything from fluff to smut to crack and everything in between.  All Barisi, all the time.





	1. Smutty Soulmate AU

**Author's Note:**

> All these chapters will be a different universe, not connected in any way whatsoever unless designated otherwise. First up:
> 
> A Smutty Soulmate AU, prompted by tobeconspicuous.

 

It was someone in the room.

It had to be.

Only someone in the room would know exactly where Rafael was facing, would know where to have their minds touch him so that it wasn’t obvious or provocative.  Other people might have been thrilled to know their soulmate was in the room with them - Rafael was only thankful they seemed to have a modicum of respect for what he was doing.  

Mostly, anyway.  

The touches were soft, respectful.  On his arm, the back of his neck.  Once, after a particularly rough cross that didn’t yield the information he expected it to, he felt a warm hand low on his back on his way back to his chair.  He looked around but no one seemed to be paying him any particular attention.  The jurors were already watching Rita start her line of questioning, the detectives and Liv were sitting behind him with the victim.  Somber, watchful.  The gallery was full of otherwise unfamiliar faces and it would have been impossible for him to watch them all for signs of acknowledgment.  

So he didn’t.

He turned to keep his eye on whatever nonsense Rita was willing to sling for the highest dollar and tried not to take comfort in the brief press of lips behind his ear, even if he did unconsciously move his hand to cover the kiss as it faded.

 

\--

 

Over time Rafael realized that not only had it been someone in the room - it had been someone he worked with.  Maybe not directly, at least, but at least someone he saw frequently.  The capacity was unclear.  He felt it in his own office, even when alone, but those touches were always more vague than the others.  Like they weren’t sure what he was doing or where he was so they refrained.  Often he wished they wouldn’t - because it would provide more clues, obviously.  Not because this tenuous connection excited him.

Which was why, of course, he found the sudden uptick of touching at night particularly interesting.

For clues.

Not because the feeling of lips meeting his as he lays down for the night is particularly interesting in itself, nor is the hands trailing down his sides or teeth grazing across his collarbone.  When Rafael finds sweat dotting his brow and his eyes fluttering closed it’s only the thought of answers that has him gathering his bottom lip between his teeth, praying for his soulmate’s inanimate hands to drift beyond the jut of his hipbones and the tender skin on the inside of his thighs.

They never do.

Instead they drive him crazy, night after night.  

Light and teasing without a hint of the desperation that has Rafael twisting in his sheets, sweat clinging to his skin.  

Really, it was a good sign that his soulmate seemed to know exactly how to excite him.  It wasn’t a concept Rafael had ever placed a lot of worth in but here he was, murmuring encouragements into the empty air of his bedroom as though some faceless person somewhere in the city would hear them and have mercy on him.  The mercy he provides himself is lackluster and short-lived, destined to beat back the fire for a short time but set it raging anew the next time there was a whisper of lips against his hairline.  

It takes him several days to realize that there’s no mercy to be had.

 

\--

 

It’s been weeks of torture at his soulmate’s hands by the time Rafael worries he’s going to go out of his mind.  Only that morning he’d woken up to the hot pull of a mouth on his left nipple, sucking deep and lightly flicking until he was a shuddering mess fisting the sheets and thrusting up into empty air.  

The thought of shame no longer occurs to him.

Nor does the thought of clues.

Instead, when he drops into a chair in SVU’s interview and conference room, all he can think about is how to make it through the day with his heart beating wildly and his skin craving touch.  He doesn’t know how he makes it through the briefing, is even surprised to look down and find notes written on his legal pad, but he’s thankful when Liv dismisses everyone and he can retreat to his office.  He’s packing up his things when the blunt drag of something against the inside of his thigh has him tensing in anticipation.

A finger, maybe?

The end of a shoe?

_ A nose _ , he realizes with a choked groan as the same wet heat that had driven him to the brink that morning descended onto the length of his prick.  Molten and unbearably tight, a nimble tongue dancing around in leaps and slides until he’s fully hard and trying to avoid thrusting into nothing.  All he can think of to be grateful for is the fact that the room is empty and no one will be there to see him come.  

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

His head whips around, landing on a familiar face.

A very familiar face.

“You?” Rafael asks breathlessly and his hips twitch up again at the crooked smile that graces Carisi’s lips.  “It’s you?”

He doesn’t answer, only levels a hard look of concentration on Rafael’s lap and wets his bottom lip while the incorporeal mouth on his dick takes him deep and flutters around his length.  

“God!  God, Carisi.  We need to go.  Somewhere, anywhere,” he says breathlessly, hands gripping the arms of his chair hard enough to break them.  “Not here.  We can’t do this here.”

The sensations stop and he wants to cry and complain, simultaneously.

“I’m sorry,” Carisi offers, even if the color high on his cheeks suggest otherwise.  “I’m sorry, I should’ve known better.”

Rafael stares at him, mouth open and gasping for breath.

He knows how Carisi thinks now.

Selflessly, content to turn Rafael into a keening, throbbing mess before taking an ounce of pleasure for himself.  The image Rafael had of the man before this had been rendered invalid because now he knew Carisi wanted to suck him off more than he wanted to get off himself.  He knew exactly how Carisi would want to touch him - light and teasing, offering and holding back until Rafael had to either beg or come untouched.

“Take me home, detective,” Rafael grinds out, standing even through the discomfort of his erection tight against his pants.  “Unless you want to make me come here, where I have to be quiet and avoid screaming your name.”

Carisi’s eyes threaten to roll back and he nods.  

“Take a second, counselor.  I’m gonna tell the Lieu you need a ride.”

Rafael scoffs as Carisi takes off like a bolt of lightning.

He’s going to need a lot more than a ride.


	2. Doctor/Companion AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor/Companion AU, also prompted by tobeconspicuous.

This shouldn’t be happening to him.  

When Rafael agreed to his mother’s and Olivia’s suggestion go upstate for a weekend it was with the assumption of peace and quiet.  Good food, scotch.  A distinct lack of company because part of the agreement was that if Rafael took a long weekend the two of them were  _ not  _ invited.  Even with his mother’s wealth of opinions on antiquated inns and where to best view the sunset and Olivia’s offers to point him toward the best creme brulee of his life.  He wanted to be  _ alone _ .  

Which, of course, doesn’t explain what’s happening now.

Which is, of course, Rafael walking up from a riverbed with the distinct sensation of  _ something  _ skittering over the back of his neck.  He’d heard voices earlier, some odd noises he couldn’t have begun to identify, and now there was this belief that he wasn’t leaving so much as he was  _ escaping _ .  The backpack resting between his shoulders was full of wine and an assortment of cheeses, a bottle of water, and not even the hope of a weapon that he wouldn’t know how to use anyway.  

Rafael didn’t know why he was scared but he was.  He marveled at his own ridiculousness as he scaled the soft earth of the riverbed and started the trudge back to the road, unconsciously wondering why he hadn’t just used the path he’d taken down.  Seemingly none of his decisions were making any sense.  The choice he’d made to leave his phone in his room despite the knowledge he was going out into the woods.  The choice he’d made to keep his actual whereabouts secret - initially to prevent his mother from showing up, and now… he wasn’t sure.  Why hadn’t he at least sent a text to tell them where to look if something happened to him?

The log in his path seemed determined to be the thing that happened to him, sending him splaying to the forest floor hard enough to cut his knee though his fashionable jeans and to scrape his elbow deep enough that he bled on the sapphire blue cashmere pullover he’d picked out specifically for this weekend.  Then, though, it was with the intention of lazing in a camp chair next the river while he snacked and read a book that didn’t have anything to do with the criminal justice system.  It wasn’t so much with the intention of running for his life despite the fact that  _ nothing  _ had happened and that  _ no one  _ was following him and  _ nothing he did was making sense. _

When he broke through the line of trees and felt the golden late afternoon sunshine on his skin, he thought he might cry.

At least until the rumble in the distance.  

And then the motorcycle, swerving to miss him as he stumbled into the road.  He stayed upright, gasping while the motorcycle flipped around and came right back for him.  There was a long moment where he considered not moving.  He was scraped and bruised and his brain kept telling him to panic despite nothing being wrong.  Luckily the decision wasn’t given to him because the motorcycle avoided him entirely on its way back, pulling to a stop a few feet in front of him.  He’s preparing to apologize for his insanity but a familiar accent stops him before the words form.

“Hey, counselor.  I thought that was you."

Carisi?

“Carisi?!” he marveled, standing up straight again to see his colleague straddling a vintage motorcycle that growled beneath him.  A light jacket was around his shoulders, the chocolate brown leather bringing out the blue in his eyes and the gold in his hair.  Had it not been for the accent Rafael might not have recognized him at all.

Well.

The accent and the tool in his hand, glowing a bright cyan and whirring like a smaller version of the motorcycle.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, unable to help himself from looking back over his shoulder at the unidentifiable noises from before.  Noises that Carisi seemed to hear as well, forcing a frown to tilt his full mouth at the corners.  

“You know, a little of this.  Little of that.  Seeing what kind of trouble I can get into,” he replied, trying for playful but too distracted to pull it off.  “Say, why don’t you get on, counselor?  I’ll get you back to wherever you’re staying.”

His head felt fuzzy.

He didn’t understand the question.

“What?” he asked, rubbing at the top of his head distractedly.  

“Too late,” Carisi replied, frown deepening.  He shoved the kickstand into place and stood, swinging his leg over the big and reaching for Rafael with the hand not holding his… device.  Whatever it was.  “Come on, Barba.  Let’s go.  Let’s get you out of here.”

“Out of where?” he asked, feeling an odd pressure building behind his ears.  Carisi’s long, warm hands on his shoulders were the only thing anchoring him to the moment while he wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

“Don’t worry.  I’ve got you,” Carisi answers simply as he guides Rafael toward the bike, prompting him with a quick tap on his leg to hike it over.  “What do you say we get out of here, alright?  See if we can’t get you cleaned up.”

“Cleaned.  Cleaned up.”

Carisi gets on the bike behind him and scoots close, Rafael’s back pressed against Carisi’s lean front.  Another time this might have excited him more, might have had his start start to race.  Now it was a indistinct niggling at the back of his awareness because it was time for something else to escape the trees in front of them.  

Something dark, something dangerous. 

Something with that looked like fur or feathers, lumbering on the ground and raising wings to lift it into the air.  

Something distinctly  _ other  _ that Rafael had never seen in his life.

Carisi revved the engine and pressed something into Rafael’s hand.  The glowstick he’d been holding earlier but now Rafael’s head cleared with the first touch of it against his palm.  His thoughts cleared, his focus sharpened.  The foolish, irrational fear no longer felt so foolish because once his mind was back Rafael realized that what was following them was nothing that would be found on this planet.  

“Go,” he heard in his ear, Carisi’s lips soft against his ear, and Rafael hit the gas.  

The sped off too quickly for Rafael to actively worry about being followed, or for him to realize that he’d never driven a motorcycle in his life.  All he knew was that Carisi told him to go and he knew enough to trust him.  He took turns carefully, slowed appropriately, listened to the murmur of Carisi’s voice in his ear as they drove and - finally - reached a gravel road that he was instructed to go down until it forked, then take a right.  Rafael followed the directions carefully, still clutching Carisi’s tool in his hand as he drove.

“What was that?” he asked finally, turning slightly to raise his voice over the noise of the engine.  

“Sorry, the vibration is getting to me.”

“No, not that,” Rafael said, rolling his eyes because he knew Carisi was messing with him now.  “What was that thing that came out behind us?”

“If my memory serves me, and it usually does, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was a paracognisite straight from the Medullar system,” he replied.  “Never seen one on this planet, not in years.  They typically go for a richer meal than humans, but I’m guessing it’s stranded and couldn’t help getting a fix when a crazy smart lawyer showed up in at its front door.”

“Paracognisite?” Rafael repeated and  _ why  _ was this not scaring him yet?  “Medullar system?”

“Oh, billions of lightyears from here.  I’ve only been a time or two.  For all the obvious reasons,” he said and Rafael could hear the cocky grin in his voice.  “Now, just past this turn you’re going to slow down and I’m about a block past that.  Behind one of those big spruce trees.”

“What was it doing to me?”

“Feeding off your intelligence,” Carisi replied.  “They’re strong, they live a long time, but their cerebral cortex doesn’t leave much room for evolution in the intelligence department so they siphon it off of other species.  Pretty effective, I’d say.  They’ll live eons past humanity and that’s even if you guys manage to get your act together in time.  Hey, slow down a bit.”

Rafael did as he was told, even as his mind reeled.  

When finally he found their destination, he pulled the bike to the side and killed the engine.  Carisi hopped off the back and ran his hands through his hair, stretching.  Still trying to be lighthearted he commented on the falling sun, on the colors as they stretched across the field to their west.  He was all long limbs and broad shoulders and a few hours ago Rafael might have felt compelled to get hung up on his looks rather than the fact that he was using words Rafael had never heard, was naming places that didn’t exist.  

“Your name isn’t Dominick Carisi, is it?” Rafael asked, surprising them both.  Carisi seemed to accept it well, grinning.

“Sometimes it is,” he replied.  “Think of it as a stage name.”

Rafael quirked a brow.

“So who are you?” he asked, just as the sunset poured over the top of the blue box hidden behind the trees, lighting it up cobalt and gold.  There were words across the top, designating it as a police box.  A concept foreign to him as an American but still sounded familiar.  

Carisi grinned wider.

“I’m the Doctor.”

The device still in Rafael’s hand hummed happily, as though the words themselves were a comfort while his own mind struggled to keep up.  

“Doctor who?”

The doors to the box opened and Carisi - the Doctor? - offered a slim hand and a daring smile.  

 

“Come with me, counselor.  I’ll tell you all about it.”


	3. Cop/Person Getting a Speeding Ticket AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cop/Person Getting a Speeding Ticket AU requested by an anon on Tumblr.

Sonny wanted to slam his forehead against the wheel.

He didn’t, but he wanted to.

The red and blue flashes behind him pretty much guaranteed he wasn’t making any sudden movements.  Instead he waited while the cop behind him took his sweet time getting out of the cruiser.  His wallet sat in his lap, driver’s license and insurance card out.  By the time the officer approached the window Sonny was antsy, knee bouncing up and down next to the steering wheel.  He rolls it down just as the officer comes to stand next to him.  All he can see is a belt and a broad chest, sidearm on his hip.

It’s the voice that really gets him.

“Do you know why I stopped you?”

A rich, smooth tenor that really shouldn’t have affected him like it did because what kind of line was that?  He didn’t have time for this.

“Hey, listen-”

“You were going sixty in a forty-five.”

“Yeah, no kidding.  I have court in half an hour.”

Suddenly the belt buckle in his line of sight disappears in favor of a tanned face, smooth jaw.  Vibrant green eyes.  Of  _ course  _ Sonny would get wrapped up in how hot the guy was rather than worry about getting his ass to work.  Fortunately that particular fantasy bubble was popped as soon as the asshole opened his mouth again.

“Someone suing you?”

He gaped.

“No, obviously not-”

“You’re a lawyer?”

He really,  _ really  _ didn’t have time for this.  

“Yeah, I’m an ADA in Manhattan.  With an important case that I’m going to be late for,” he said meaningfully but the man outside his window didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that this was stressing him out.  

“Do you have ID?” he asked and Sonny sighed, thrusting his paperwork at him.  “Are we really doing this right now?  I just told you I have to be in court.”

A dark eyebrow arched over a glittering green eye and Sonny’s mouth went dry.

Why was this hot?

Why was this working for him?

This was  _ not  _ helping.

“This is your driver’s license.  I need to see your ID for the district attorney’s office,” he said and waited patiently while Sonny muttered a curse under his breath and grabbed his ID badge out of his briefcase, thrusting it at the man in an attempt to speed this up.

It didn’t work.

Instead he nodded, clicking his tongue, and took Sonny’s information back to the cruiser.  Sonny watched in the side mirror as he left and tried to think more about Buchanan waiting for him at the courthouse rather than the spectacular ass in tight-fitting black pants as it walked away.  The dressing down he was going to get from Judge Barth would be nearly epic.  They’d warn other ADAs about it in the future.  

Five minutes later, Sonny had all his IDs back and was holding a crisp white speeding ticket, issued at two-thirty in the afternoon on Friday, September 15th.  Signed by one Rafael Barba, who’d handed it off to him with a smirk and a casual wish for him to have a good day and to call him if there were any concerns about the ticket.

“Concerns.”

That son of a bitch.

 

-

 

Sonny came in the door before seven that night, sighing and hanging up his keys.  He took his jacket off from around his shoulders and tossed it over a chair, already contemplating what takeout he’d be having for dinner before calling out.  

“Babe!  You here?” he asked, loosening his tie.  “You will not believe the day I’ve had.  I mean, jeez.”

A voice called back from the bedroom.

“How was court?”

“Oh, court was fine.  Jury returned a guilty verdict in less than an hour,” he said, venturing back to the bedroom as he heard their bathroom door close.  “The worst part of my day was this asshole cop giving me a ticket.”

A crazy hot asshole cop, but he wasn’t going to mention that part.  It was liable to get him into trouble.

“Didn’t you tell him why you were speeding?”

“I tried to tell him but he didn’t care about making me late.  Thought it was funny, I bet.”

“How could you tell?”

“It was the shit-eating grin on his stupid gorgeous face,” Sonny pointed out bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest so he at least looked pissed off when the bathroom door opened.  

Rafael was still in uniform, although his black shirt is unbuttoned and his white undershirt is visible.  Looking pretty smug about almost making him late to court.  The asshole.  What was he even doing in uniform, anyway?  He’d been sergeant at SVU for going on five years.”

“What’s all this about?” Sonny asked, gesturing to the uniform.  “You got a costume party later or something?”

“Undercover,” Rafael replied, stripping the button up from his body.  

“As a cop?” he questioned, scoffing.  “You really are terrible at this.”

“Catching a suspect at his mother’s house.  I go to the door in uniform while everyone else waits in the back.”

“You could have just asked for a warrant.”

“You said we didn’t have enough for one and besides,” Rafael said, grinning and sidling up to him, “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Where’s the fun in pulling me over for kicks and giggles, because you just happened to have a cruiser and catch me on my way to court?”

Rafael smirks and gets closer, fingers drawn to Sonny’s belt.

“That was the only fun part, actually,” he told Sonny and toyed with his belt loops. 

“Oh, no.  You don’t get to play lovey-dovey with me right now, Raf.  You pulled me over.  Almost made me late.  You gave me a  _ ticket,  _ Rafi.  A real one, that will go on my record and I will have to pay.  Because you were bored at work.”

Rafael shrugged.  

The smug asshole.

“Maybe I didn’t put it in the system,” he suggested, playing coy.  Voice soft.  Fingers lowering Sonny’s zipper while Sonny himself marveled at his own lack of backbone when he felt his blood pressure pick up at the feeling of Rafael’s hands on him.  

“You didn’t?”

“Did I?”

“Rafael.”

“Come to bed, Sonny,” he replied, dragging Sonny’s hips forward until they met his own.  It looked like Rafael had a one-track mind and had been waiting for Sonny a while, if his state was anything to go by.  

“Oh yeah?” Sonny asked, mouth dry.  Voice a little shaky because his skin was heating under his husband’s attention and he was starting to forget why he was mad.

“Yeah.”

“Why should I?”

Rafael grinned.

A wide, wolfish thing that made Sonny’s heart pound.

He leaned forward to whisper in Sonny’s ear, catching the lobe in his teeth.  

“Maybe we can talk about you working off that ticket...”


	4. Angry Teacher Exes AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two prompts blended together: "pretending to hate each other AU" by noodlebugg and "exes meeting after years of not speaking to each other AU" by barbaxbenson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I am really, really attached to this one. I'm considering making it a multi-chapter fic in the future.

_Knock, knock, knock._

Sonny found himself bracing at the sound, recognizing already the quick staccato on his classroom door.  Apparently some of the students in the front room noticed it too, because half groaned while the other half giggled. They were supposed to be taking a test on the romantic era of British literature and instead they were watching him like a hawk, wondering what kind of scene they were going to get that day.  Icy civility or hot-tempered snark.  Either were likely, depending on their mood on that particular day.  It was only a few minutes after eleven so Sonny found himself hoping for something that might resemble calm, mature conversation.

 _Hoping_  being the key word.

Sonny had been teaching English Literature at Spring Valley Unified High School for two and a half years.   Happily, effectively.  He liked the students and they seemed to like him too.  It was a brisk thirty-minute walk from his apartment and less than a block from his favorite lunch place.  Additionally, the pay helped him pay off his student loans faster than normal and he had the added benefit of a principal who enjoyed taking chances on new teachers.  He’d never been happier with a job in his life, and that was after years of pinging around between schools.  

Then.

Then the English department was doing so well that it expanded to add another advanced placement class in addition to several more general English courses, and Sonny was thrilled to have someone else on his team after his partner in crime, Mr. Munch, had retired the year before.  Thrilled until he heard the telltale strains of  _Symphonie Fantastique’s Opus 14, no. 1_  coming from across the hall and his blood couldn’t decided if it wanted to cool or heat and his stomach twisted into an ecstatic, anxious knot.

_Rafael._

A man he hadn’t seen in going on ten years, not since the third year of his master’s program.  

Rafael Barba was a doctoral student who filled in for one of Sonny’s professors from time to time.  A doctoral student with thick, dark hair and mischievous green eyes and a solid body that Sonny itched to commit to memory.  He was brilliant and opinionated and had a serious love for Gothic literature that went so deep it influenced his musical taste.  Sonny had spent hours listening to Rafael’s favorite Gothic operetta in the small office down the hall from his broom closet, waiting for the moment he could make his infatuation into something more solid.  

A moment that came in the form of a faculty-organized cocktail party at the Dean’s house, culminating in a tipsy kiss on a veranda because Rafael had noticed him, too.  Sitting on the front row, watching him.  Forgetting to take notes if Rafael was particularly animated, if he was particularly witty or sarcastic or dismissive.  Chewing on his pen, long legs splayed out in front of him, hair tousled and lips full.  A streak of sunshine in an ugly orange chair.  

That became a relationship that lasted a year.

A fiery, intense, wonderful year where Sonny learned what it mean to want someone so much he couldn’t breathe.  He’d taken Rafael on every surface of both their offices, both their homes.  The sex was earth-shattering and the conversation in between only matched that, filled with sarcasm and teasing and in-depth conversations about literature and religion and philosophy and food.  If Sonny was being honest with himself, it was the happiest he’d ever been in his life - until Rafael ended it.  

Because Sonny was “young”.

Because Sonny “didn’t know what he wanted”.  

Because they both knew that what Sonny wanted more than anything was Rafael.

Sonny graduated six months later, wasted away for almost a year in his heartbreak, and never spoke to Rafael again.  Not until three months ago, when he’d ventured across the hall to find his ex-lover setting up his own classroom, Berlioz ringing out from his laptop.  Rafael had aged, as people were wont to do when a decade had passed.  Sadly Rafael had only become alluring during that time, the gray threaded through his hair distinguished and the lines at the corners of his eyes softening his usual glare.  He looked healthy, looked happy.  Looked at Sonny without an ounce of surprise to alter his features.

“Sonny,” Rafael said, mouth curved up in a smirk.  “How have you been?”

_Better now since I haven’t had to lay eyes on you in ten years._

_Hating you._

_Loving you._

_Wishing we’d never met._

_Missing you so much it hurts._

In the end, none of those sentiments left his lips.  No words did.  He’d turned on his heel and walked away, back toward his own classroom, where he shut the door and locked it for good measure.  Waiting for Rafael to leave for the day had kept him there until close to six but he stuck it out, sneaking out a few minutes behind him so he wouldn’t be forced to walk together.  It had taken him another two weeks to brave a word, and even then it was to tell him to keep his radio down because it was distracting his students.  

“Distraction is easy when they’re not engaged, I guess,” Rafael had said lightly, taking paperwork from his mailbox.  “I’ll endeavor to keep it down in the future.”

Their relationship hadn’t gotten any warmer since.

“Mr. Carisi?” one of his students asked, looking amused when Sonny started and came back to the present.  “You gonna answer the door?”

He sighed.

“Yeah, I guess.”  He stood from his desk, lips pursed.  “If I’m not back in ten minutes send reinforcements.”

A few snickers sounded across the room and he walked out into the hall, both dreading and excited for whatever he was walking into.  Rafael was leaning against the lockers behind the door, arms across his chest.  Wearing a checkered button up that pulled tight across his chest and biceps with his sleeves rolled to his elbows.  Sonny’s mouth went dry.  It seemed unfair that Rafael had only gotten better looking with age.  How was he supposed to look at him with abject loathing when all he wanted to do was see if his skin tasted how it used to?

“You need reinforcements to speak with me?” Rafael asked knowingly and Sonny rolled his eyes.

“No, I need reinforcements to keep me from wasting this entire period arguing with you,” he replied and that only seemed to amuse him more.  “What do you want?”

“Have you talked to Benson today?”

He shook his head.  

“Nah, she was in some administrative meeting.  Why?”

“I heard some gossip today.”

“What kind of gossip?”

“The kind that suggests they’re comparing our classes’ AP exam scores,” Rafael told him, smirking.  “Funding is only getting tighter and they’re trying to decipher who stands to benefit from it the most - the highest performing class, of course.  Feeling confident this year, Carisi?”

Sonny bristled.

He knew that tone.

“Oh don’t worry about it much, Barba,” he said, crowding into Rafael’s space.  He searched his face for a hint of weakness, finding none.  “I’m sure you’ll do alright.  If you haven’t bored your kids to death by that time.”

“They’ll do just fine.  Especially next to the saccharine daydreamers in your class, reading Austen and sighing over Darcy like every other romantic since the nineteenth century.  How original.”

Sonny felt his ears heat.

Stepped closer.

Close enough to feel the warmth of Rafael’s breath on his chin when he sneered, “You’re a literary ghoul, Raf.  Reading Shelley with a hardon in a thunderstorm like it makes you deep.”

“And you’re a lovesick bit of marshmallow fluff with a diary full of Byron.  No imagination for anything else?”

Sonny leaned his hand on the locker next to Rafael’s head.

“Those monsters you fetishize have more life in them than you do.  Not sure how anyone leaves your class with a pulse.”

“At least they leave knowing something other than how their teacher looks when he talks about Coleridge.  Speaking of fetishes, how many marriage plots have you taught this year?”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Sonny jerks, affronted.  

Mouth open.

Mouth suddenly on Rafael’s, shoving him against the lockers while he brushed his tongue along the roof of Rafael’s mouth to the deep grumble of satisfaction emanating from Rafael’s broad chest.  He tasted like coffee and felt like heaven and it wasn’t until Rafael gave a muffled groan of pain - a padlock digging into his back - that Sonny pulled away, eyes wide.  Shocked.  Eyes already drawing inevitably back to the pink sheen on Rafael’s lips, daring Sonny to brave another taste.  A taste that promised to be better than the first, if only he’d given in.

Sonny leveled a finger at Rafael’s face, even as he backed away.  

“You’re on, Barba.”

Rafael grinned.  

“You can try, anyway.”

Sonny backed away, making sure to slam his classroom door on his way inside.  


	5. Celebrity/Fan AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celebrity/Fan AU, requested by an anon.

Rafael stirred his cup absently, staring at the growing crowd with outright curiosity.  A sign a few feet away announced a book signing for that night, starting in nearly an hour.  He was enjoying his perch of relative invisibility, one of two deep armchairs in the corner of the bookstore.  So far his obvious glare had kept anyone from taking the other, which was how he preferred it anyway.  It meant he could drink his espresso in peace and ignore the distraction occurring across the room.  

Until, of course, the door to the cafe opened and the warm spring wind swept in something tall and blond and loud.  Something he’d seen last three hours before, when they’d all decided to call it a night and get a fresh start in the morning.  

“Barba?”

He offered a small smile to hide his sudden alarm and brought the cup to his lips to murmur around the rim, “Detective Carisi.”

All the glares in the world couldn’t have prevented Carisi from throwing himself down next to him, bouncing ever so slightly off the worn leather cushion before settling in.  Rafael took in the sight of him, changed from his work suit and into something more casual.  Dark slacks and a pale blue button up, work shoes traded for dress shoes that reflected the dim light in the bookstore easily.  The clothing still neat, still flattering on his lean body.  A body Rafael had appreciated more than a few times in the years they’d worked together.  A worn hardcover was clutched in his hand, the spine nearly worn to illegibility.  

The vague nerves Rafael had been dealing with for hours suddenly grew into jangling anxiety because his coworker was  _ not  _ supposed to be here.

“Didn’t take you for a reader,” Carisi commented distractedly, eyes darting to the makeshift stage once every second or so.  “You a fan too?”

“A fan?” Rafael repeated, amused.

“Yeah.  Of Robert Cutter.  The author.”

“Mmm,” he replied, noncommittal.  

_ Something like that _ .

“He’s great.  I’ve been reading his books for years, since the first,” Carisi informed him unbidden and Rafael looked over at him, surprised.  The first of the novels had come out several years before and Rafael had a hard time imagining Carisi was capable of an attention span that long, and that didn’t even address how much he doubted the subject matter would be appealing to him at all. 

“You’re a detective  _ and  _ a lawyer.  I have a hard time seeing how a legal thriller would interest you in the least.”

Carisi shrugged.

“Not usually, but these are different.  My ma got the first one for me when I applied to law school because she thought I’d like it and I was hooked about a fourth of the way through it,” he confessed with a disarming smile in Rafael’s direction.  “I’ve been reading them since.  Usually the first day they come out if I’m not working.”

“It must be all the stunning realism,” Rafael mocked, more than intimately familiar with the fact that Robert Cutter’s books were anything but realistic.  Based in legal fact, yes.  But not realistic in the slightest.  

“Yeah, okay, so it’s not really how all of this goes down usually,” Carisi admitted with a smirk.  “Pretty sure they don’t let prosecutors investigate on their own.  The DA’s office hires private investigators for that.  Neither would they let them hold court drunk, I’m pretty sure, even it was a serial killer about to be released.”

“You’d be right about that.”

“I just… I like how his mind works.  It’s one thing to know the law and practice it, it’s one thing to write it.  But being able to turn the law into a character?  Turn it into something that has to be explored and tested and pushed so that justice can be served?  That’s just genius.”

Rafael had to fight to keep the pleased flush from his cheeks.

“That’s high praise coming from someone whose job it is to carry out the law,” he observed, watching as Carisi ducked his head sheepishly.  

“Yeah, well.  He deserves it.”

Rafael arched a brow.  

“Don’t tell me you have a crush.”

“What?  No,” Carisi blustered but the color on his neck spoke volumes.  Volumes he was all too happy to read, glad to have been here for the first time since arriving half an hour ago.  Rafael found himself leaning forward, putting his coffee to the side.  Crossing his legs, leaning his head on his elbow.  

Dominick Carisi Jr., a cocky Italian cop who was quite possibly more Catholic than the Pope himself, had a crush on a man and wasn’t that interesting?

The detective didn’t so much as flinch, squaring his shoulders as though waiting for rebuke or scorn.  It made Rafael wonder just what kind of vibes he put off, because if Carisi was expecting to be mocked for being attracted to men he’s either not paying enough attention or Rafael plays straighter than he thinks.  Neither of which matter when it’s the two of them sitting so close, the younger man confessing to a crush on an anonymous celebrity in front of a colleague.  

“Carisi, you’re about twenty years too young for a crush,” he chided lightly, smirking.   “You’ve never even seen the man.  It could be a pseudonym for all you know.”

And Rafael  _ did  _ know.

Robert Cutter had never made a single public appearance, had never had a picture published on either a book jacket or magazine article.  There were theories, of course.  Theories that he wasn’t a lawyer like the jacket claimed and couldn’t afford to be outed, theories that he was a woman working against a misogynistic marketing system with strategic use of a pseudonym.  Maybe that he was an author already published in a different genre who used a pen name to publish something else without expectations from his prior work.  

Carisi didn’t seem to care about any them.

“What does that matter?” Carisi fired back, looking affronted.  “You think I need to see a guy to know if I wanna spend more time with him?”

He scoffed, amused.  

Of course Carisi was a romantic.  

“Apologies, detective.  I didn’t realize the depth of your devotion to this faceless man who almost certainly uses an alias to publish,” he snarked.  “Please, tell me all about how the two of you will be married for forty years and play parents to sixteen Jack Russel terriers.”

Carisi tried, he really did, but the laugh punched its way out of him before he could help himself and his stunning blue eyes sparkled with the shared joke.  

“Yeah, alright.  That may be pushing it a little.”

“A little?”

“A lot,” he allowed, “And he may be straight for all I know.  Or female, not that it’s a dealbreaker for me.  But… man, at least a dinner or something?  Just to pick his - or her - brain for an hour or two?  I could live with that.”

“You’re adorable, Carisi,” he observed kindly, for once not turning a compliment into a barb.  

“Yeah, yeah,” the younger man waved off.  “Give me a hard time later.  Preferably another night entirely.”

“Wouldn’t dream of intruding on your moment,” he said and sighed, standing up from the deep well of his armchair.  “If you’ll excuse me, detective.  I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah, sure.  I’ll save you a seat.”

_ Won’t need one _ , Rafel thought and only barely suppressed a smirk as he wound through racks of magazines to find his agent in the back room.  She was flustered, as per usual, but excited at the turnout and for once not admonishing him for overdressing.  A few minutes later he heard the microphone come to life, his name called over the speakers in her high, Boston-tinted voice.   The nerves that welled up surprised him for a only a moment and then they were gone, burned away by the quick thrill of walking out to the sound of applause.

It was embarrassing how good it felt.

Particularly when he made eye contact with Carisi, who was staring at him with slack-jawed amazement.  Slack-jawed amazement that faded only once his earlier gushing came back to him and Rafael watched in real time as his jaw snapped shut and an expression of dawning horror slipped over his otherwise pleasant features.  

It was a moment Rafael cherished.  Through the brief reading of the first chapter, through a discussion of his writing process and what made him decide to tell these stories and why.  To his (false) background of private practice after years of working for the state.  Carisi watched through all of it, looking very much like he wanted to pipe up and say something stupid but was refraining.  Rafael made a mental note to thank him later - and maybe be nicer to him in the future.  Not a lot, because that would betray just how fond of him Rafael really was.  Just nice enough to keep himself on Carisi’s good side.

Maybe also because Rafael never wanted the admiration in the detective’s eyes to fade.  

Before long the lecture was over and the signing portion had started, Rafael stumbling over using a fake name only once or twice before falling into a groove.  In half an hour the line had dwindled and he found himself yearning for another coffee - just something small that wouldn’t keep him awake but would perk him up for a little while longer.  Seconds later a paper cup was set in front of him.  It smelled dark, smelled fresh.  It was encased by long, pale fingers that he was all too happy to follow up a slender arm to a pleasantly familiar face.  A pleasantly familiar face that was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and worry.

“Detective,” he acknowledged, leaning back in his chair.  

“Counselor,” Carisi returned.

Fondly, he hoped.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” he asked, unable to help himself.  If Liv found out he would never live it down.

“Tell them what?  That I know how you can afford all those fancy suits on a public servant’s salary?”

Rafael rolled his eyes.

“Carisi-”

“No, no, I know,” he replied, grinning.  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

He accept Carisi’s book and flipped to the title page, pausing for a moment before signing his name.  His real name, the one Carisi knew him by.  It would be a secret between the two of them now, something they could share.  He handed it back slowly, keeping it just a second longer than necessary so that Carisi’s hand brushed his.

“Still interested in taking Robert Cutter to dinner?” Rafael asked softly, offering a small smile to assure him of his seriousness.  

“Depends,” Carisi told him, despite the excited flush staining his ears.  The detective was undoubtedly eager but the effort of holding himself back was turning him pink.

“On?”

“You can pick the restaurant,” Carisi allowed, “But I draw the line at sixteen Jack Russell terriers.  Big dogs or nothing, alright?”

Rafael snorted, noticing for the first time how much he liked the sight of a teasing smile on the detective’s face.

“Yeah.  Fair enough,” he said.  “Wait for me?  I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Carisi grinned and tucked his book under his arm.

“Take your time, counselor.  I’m not going anywhere.”

 


	6. Terminal Illness AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terminal Illness AU, requested by Robin Hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wanted to challenge myself writing-wise and Robin was kind enough to provide me with a prompt that I would NEVER have chosen for myself. But be warned, tragedy ahead. No character death but it is implied. This was particularly difficult to write so feel free to skip if the sad stuff isn't your cup of tea. Remember, sometimes self care is skipping stories that don't do it for you. <3

Sonny woke slowly.

He flitted in and out for an hour or so, eyelids oscillating before going still again.  

Rafael liked to believe he was dreaming despite the fact that he knew the anesthesia was too strong for his brain to dream.  He wanted it that way.  It meant he couldn’t feel the incisions at the base of his skull, couldn’t feel the lesions formed in constellations over the surface of his brain.  This was their fourth surgery in two years and it was starting to feel like this view of Sonny - the one from the small couch by the window - had taken over every other view he’d ever had of his husband.

They’d been married for four years.  Half of those had been in scenes like one he was in currently, first in the hunt for a diagnosis and then in the hopes of treatment.

“Raf?” Sonny asked, voice hoarse.

“Yeah,” he said, jumping up from his place to walk around the bed.  Sonny was laying on his side, keeping weight off his new incisions.  “Yeah, I’m here.  What do you need?”

“My head hurts.”

“I know it does,” he assured him, reaching out to run a hand down Sonny’s arm.  “You can have a pain pill soon, okay?  The nurse is coming in a few minutes.”

“Nurse?” Sonny asked, brow furrowed.  “What nurse?”

Rafael braced himself against the question, took a deep breath.  

“You’re in the hospital, Sonny.”

“What?  How long?”

“Just today.  We’ve been here about eighteen hours.”

Blue eyes darted up to meet his, widened in alarm.

“Why, Raf?” he asked.  “Why am I here?”

God help him.

He wasn’t strong enough for this.

“What year is it, Sonny?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed so he could feel Sonny’s body heat melding into his.  

“What?  Raf-”

“Come on,” he interrupted.  “Humor me.”

“It’s 2020.”

He sighed.

Sonny was living two years ago. 

Still.

“That’s not right, is it?” Sonny asked, reading Rafael’s expressions with ease before he’d had a chance to school them into something neutral.  

“Close though,” he assured him with a sweep of his hand down Sonny’s arm and a wan smile.  Smiling was the only thing that seemed to distract Sonny when the questions got hard.  “You’re really close.”

“How old am I?”

“How old do you feel?”

“Right now?  About eighty,” Sonny said with a hoarse laugh, clearing his throat.  “Hey, can you hand me that cup of water?  I’m dying of thirst over here.”

Rafael nodded and stood from the bed, reading for the glass and the small container of powder a therapist had left for them.  Rafael took two heaping spoonfuls and mixed it in until the water thickened to something closer to honey, a habit that had long become second nature since Sonny’s swallowing had weakened.  The thickened liquids were easier for him to swallow and prevented liquid from entering his lungs.  Sonny always made a face but trusted Rafael when he said it was necessary.

“Jeez, that’s awful.  What did you do to it?”

The comment was almost always the same, word for word.  

“It’s to help you swallow, Sonny.  You have to take it.”

“Alright, alright.”

Also the same.

“God, take that away.  I’d rather live without,” he said, clearing his throat a few times as he handed Rafael the glass.  The wet sound of Sonny’s voice meant it would have to be thicker next time - Rafael was well acquainted now with the speech therapist’s instructions, knowing Sonny couldn’t afford to get pneumonia.

“Your parents are coming by later,” Rafael told him, sighing.  “Your sisters after that.  I told them all the kids weren’t allowed but I’m sure they’ll be here anyway.”

“All the kids?” Sonny asked, surprised.  “Did Bella have more?”

As did Teresa.  And Gina.

“You’ve got a fleet of nieces and nephews, Sonny.”

“Good.  That means you do, too.”

Rafael scoffed, “As though I needed them.”

“Course you do.  They’re good for you.”

They were, actually.  Not that he’d ever admit it.

“Why am I here, Rafi?”

He sighed.

Sometimes Sonny forgot to keep asking.

“You’re sick.”

“What kind of sick?”

_ The kind of sick that means radiation and gamma knife surgery and real surgery. _

_ The kind of sick that steals your memory and your eyesight and your ability to eat and drink. _

The kind of sick that means Sonny lived perpetually in the time before his diagnosis, never aware of it until Rafael has to tell him.

“Very sick,” Rafael said and hated himself for the sound of his voice breaking.  It was always worse for Sonny when he broke down and he’d sworn last time it wouldn’t happen again.  

Sonny grew quiet, concerned.

“Bad, Rafi?”

Rafael nodded.

“Bad.”

Sonny was thirty-nine when they diagnosed him with a glioblastoma in the region between his left parietal and occipital lobes.  It had started with what they thought was a nasty flu - nausea, dizziness.  Getting sick.  Vision changes.  The first of dozens of ER visits had occurred the night Sonny passed out on the squad room floor, prompting long months of specialists and surgeons and oncologists telling them to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.  Praying had become second nature to Rafael now, who’d spent the last three decades of his life pointedly ignoring the fact that there was even the possibility of a God.

He didn’t ignore it now.

“I’m here for treatment, right?  They’re trying to get rid of it?”

_ Fuck. _

“They tried, Sonny.  They- they did their best.”

His eyes burned and he looked up at the bright fluorescents now, just because the sight of Sonny’s careful consideration of the facts threatened to break him.  Just like it always did.  This, Sonny’s calm acceptance, was always what did him in.  

“It didn’t work, did it?”

His voice was so small.

So unlike the man he’d known and fallen so deeply in love with.  

“No, Sonny,” he answered finally and felt a tear break free.  “It didn’t work.”

“What do you want to do, Raf?” 

Rafael blinked heavily, took a deep breath.

They’d talked about this before the surgery but he never was able to shake the feeling that the Sonny who talked to him after surgery was someone different entirely.  There were some things that were constant - his family, his job.  He knew his coworkers.  Knew they were married.  But every time Sonny came out from the anesthesia Rafael worried what part of him would be gone next.  A memory, an ability.  Movement.  The kind heart Rafael had fallen so desperately for.

“What do  _ you _ want to do?”

“I want to go home.”

Rafael nodded.

This was their decision before the surgery, too.

The man in front of him was still his Sonny.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he assured him and leaned down for a brief kiss that was over as soon as it started.  “Tell me when you feel up to eating.”

“Are you leaving?”

“No,” Rafael told him.  “No, I’ll be here.”

“Come sit with me, Rafi,” he said, voice sugary sweet and so soft it made Rafael’s chest ache.  “Come sit with me a little more.”

Rafael took his place on the bed again.  Sonny was asleep before he’d even had a chance to settle in but Rafael stayed, running a hand over Sonny’s back through his thin gown and murmuring under his breath.  A prayer - one of millions - to free Sonny of pain, to rid him of his fear.  To put it all on Rafael because if he couldn’t take Sonny’s illness he’d sure as hell take the rest of it.

The hospital bed would fit under their bedroom window.


	7. Single Parent/Nanny AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Single Parent/Nanny AU requested by booyahkendell and an anon. I turned this into an AU of the 90's sitcom The Nanny.

“Javi, Vero, Matt!” Sonny called across the terminal.  “If you’re not lined up in front of me in five seconds, hand to God I will leave you in Paris.”

Javier, the teenager, rolled his eyes but started a begrudging slump in Sonny’s direction.  It was a start, at least.  Veronica rolled her eyes but didn’t look up from her book as she walked, following her older brother without so much as a glance away from the page.  Behind them followed Matt, just over five, with his backpack over his shoulders and an old model Corvette in his hand.  He went straight to Sonny with a smile on his face, green eyes sparkling and his missing top teeth bared for the world to see.  It was reflex when Sonny bent to pick him up - Mr. Barba insisted his legs were in working order but he couldn’t help it.  Matt was the baby, which meant he was sweet on Sonny and still found it in himself to listen.

“You wouldn’t leave us,” Javi muttered as he dragged his suitcase behind him.  

“Try me,” Sonny shot back.  “You can’t even put Pop-Tarts in a toaster at home, let’s see how long you last ordering in French.”

“I can make Pop-Tarts.”

“No, you can ask Olivia to make you Pop-Tarts.  Not the same, I promise.”

“Sonny, where’s Dad?”

“Dad’s on his way,” he replied to Vero, his lips pursed tightly.  He should have been there an hour ago but Sonny wasn’t going to say that.  Everyone was tired and Sonny was stressed out.  Both for Mr. Barba, who was supposed to be in negotiations for some new Broadway show, and  _ because of  _ Mr. Barba, who was supposed to be flying back with them when the plane took off in just over thirty minutes.  

_ Mr. Carisi, I’m sure you’re more than capable of getting the four of you through security, _ he’d told him on his way out of the hotel room that morning.   _ Call me if you find yourself struggling to remember their names.   _

Asshole.

He’s lucky Sonny puts up with him.

_ Loves him _ , a stupid voice at the back of his head reminded him but he shook that errant thought away.  

Two years ago, his sister had called in sick to her newest job.  Well, newest job of two months that she complained about literally constantly.  Teresa had been hired to watch a wealthy widower’s three children.  Their mother had died a few months prior and were sorely in need of happiness in their lives.  Teresa, of course, had only had her eye on the whale that was their father.  The morning she woke up with the flu was the morning Sonny’s life had turned on a dime, because he’d agreed to cover for her and found himself a home in the process.  Teresa quit by the end of the day and Sonny never had to look for another job.  

The kids loved him and he loved them.  He’d never been as happy as he was with them, even when it got rough.  When Javi got in fights at school and Vero stopped talking for weeks.  Even when the older two missed their mom so much they were weighed down with it and Matt wondered aloud what she was like.  Even when he found himself moving in, sharing drinks in the kitchen in the middle of the night with a man only barely coming out of his grieving period.  It was those late nights in the kitchen that brought him to where he was now.  

A member of the family.

An almost-parent to three great kids.

In love with their father but unable to do a single thing about it other than gaze at him from afar and wish for the day when Rafael Barba would tell him to lock his office door behind him on his way in.

Sonny shook his head again, unwilling to travel down that road when there was still so much to be done.  Namely, getting the five of them on a plane back to New York intact and preferably with all his hair still on his head.  Which was easier said than done, especially when none of them slept well away from home and they had a twelve-hour flight ahead of them.

“Mr. Sonny, I’m hungry,” Matt whined in his ear, turning the first sound in his name into a  _ th  _ that made him grin despite himself.

“You had lunch an hour ago.”

“I gave it to Javi.”

“What?  Why?!”

“He said he was still hungry and you tell him he’s a growing boy all the time.”

Sonny looked skyward.  

“Oh boy.  Alright, Barba family.  Who’s in charge of feeding your brother?”

“I believe my father pays you for that,” Vero snarked from behind her book.  

“Don’t start.  Javi, take your brother to get something to eat since you ate his lunch,” Sonny directed, handing the kindergartener to his brother.  “We’re getting dinner on the plane in three hours so nothing big.  Understand?”

“Yeah, I got him.  Come on, Matty.”

“Did you take your blood pressure medicine this morning?”

Sonny turned to look at Veronica, who had placed the book to the side.  

“What are you talking about?  I don’t take blood pressure medicine.”

“Dad said you should.”

He gritted his teeth.  

“If I did need to, it’s because of your dad.  Where is he?”

“You said he was working.”

“He is working.”

“Then you already know where he is,” she replied and went back to reading.  

_ Never again _ , Sonny swore as he closed his eyes and counted to ten.   _ Never again is that man dragging me overseas with the kids, even if it is Paris. _

“Did you take your blood pressure medication this morning?” a voice behind him asked.  “You look like you need it.”

He hated that the sound of it sent a thrill up his spine.

“You are  _ not  _ helping,” he replied, opening his eyes to see Mr. Barba approaching.  Briefcase in hand, still dressed for his meeting.  Still gorgeous because his tan from the French countryside only made his eyes greener against the deep navy of his suit.  “How did it go?”

“I got the show.”

“You got the show?”

He smirked.

“You heard me the first time.”

Sonny grinned.

“Yeah, but it’s fun to make you repeat yourself.  Now you can have a taste of what my day has been like.”

Mr. Barba rolled his eyes but came to stand close anyway, looking down at his only daughter in the chair across from him.  Sonny spared him a warm smile from the corner of his eye and his employer didn’t waste a second in accepting it, standing a little taller with Sonny’s wordless praise between them.  When he turned his eye on the girl in front of him his voice was light, playful.  

“What, Vero?  Can’t bring yourself to congratulate your father?”

“You say that as though there was any doubt you wouldn’t win.”

Mr. Barba grinned.  

“That’s my girl.”  He looked around and then looked at the giant clock above the terminal.  “Boarding time is in fifteen minutes.  Where are the boys?  What have you been doing all this time?”

Sonny sighed.

 

-

 

“Alright,” Sonny whispered, settling back into his seat.  Rafael was next to him, leg crossed one over the other with his eyes out the window.  “Matty’s asleep, Javi’s headphones have been replaced.  Vero finished the last book and started another one.”

Rafael turned away from the window and marveled, “What does that kid even do with his headphones?  Does he eat them?  Are we not feeding him enough?”

“He’s fifteen, Mr. Barba,” Sonny replied with a laugh, “You could probably feed him with a cement truck and he’d ask where the next one was.”

“So he is eating them.”  Sonny laughed, turned to look at the man next to him.  The man watching him with warm green eyes and a faint smirk.  “Thank you, Mr. Carisi.”

“What for?”

“For coming with us to Paris.  For keeping all of us on schedule.  For being so good with them,” he elaborated.  “I don’t think they would have had nearly as much fun without you here.”

“Well, of course not.  I’m pretty sure you’re allergic.”

Rafael rolled his eyes.  

“This was a business trip for me, Mr. Carisi.  Not a vacation.”

“And thank God.  Imagine all the good food you could’ve had, all the sights.  The wine, the company.  That was a narrow miss Mr. Barba,” he marveled sarcastically and Rafael looked like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or be annoyed by it.  Sonny decided to choose for him, softening the blow.  “Congrats, by the way.”

“Hmm?” his employer asked, even as a smile threatened to turn up the corner of his mouth.

“I said congrats.  You did a great job,” Sonny continued, leaning his head back.  Being so close felt good, as did the teasing sparkle in Rafael’s eyes.  “I’m happy for you.  I know how much you believed in this script.”

Rafael nodded.

“Only if we can get the right lead.  I have a few names.”

“Good ones?”

“Good if I can catch them at the right time.  My personal favorite just opened up, though.”

“The guy from Groundhog Day?”

“If I can talk him into it, anyway,” Rafael confirmed and took a deep breath.  “Thank you for taking care of all this, Mr. Carisi.  This trip would have been a disaster without you."

Sonny grinned.

“Yeah, it would’ve.”

His employer didn’t dignify that with a response.

They sat in silence for a while, Sonny tuning in and out of the in-flight movie while Rafael seemed content to keep an eye out the window as night dragged on.  Just when he started to feel like he could drift off the plane jerked and shuddered, lurching him forward in his seat.  His eyes flew open and his first glance was to the seats in front of him, where the kids were waking up and Matty was sliding to the floor.  Sonny jumped from his seat, swaying with the turbulence as he moved, making it far enough to lean on the seats in front of him when next the plane shook.

“Mr. Sonny?” the little boy questioned, voice trembling.  “What’s happening?”

“Nothing, we’re all right.  Come on, let’s get you up.”  He hauled Matt into his arms and put him back in his seat, sitting so he could get the seatbelt around his skinny frame.  Beside him he could see Rafael with the other two, buckling them in and assuring them that it was just some wind shaking the plane.  “Here, hold onto your blanket alright?  Don’t get up until me or Daddy tells you its okay, alright?”

“Okay.”

The plane continued to shake and the captain came over the loudspeaker, belatedly warning them that they were about to hit some rough patches if everyone could return to their seat and fasten their safety belts.  Sonny stood aside while Rafael found his seat first, only sitting once he was sure Rafael was fastened completely.  He clicked his own belt into place just as the lights started flickering.  Javier’s worried gasp almost had him getting up again but he leaned into the aisle to see that the teenager’s hand was gripping the seat hard enough that his knuckles were white, not unlike his father in the seat next to Sonny.

Rafael hated flying.

He’d been on hundreds of flights in his career but none of them were easy - it was a wonder Sonny hadn’t seen him reach for a Xanax since boarding but he chose to accept that as Rafael attempting to tough it out.  He suddenly wished the man had indulged as Sonny looked over and found his face grown drawn and pale, eyes haunted as the plane shook and the captain warned of a surprise storm in the distance they would be attempting to go around.

“Hey,” Sonny said, “We’re alright.  Just breathe, okay?”

“I know how to breathe, Mr. Carisi.”

“Then give it a shot for me, alright?” he shot back.  “If you hold your breath you’re going to pass out.  I bet Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn’t pass out on airplanes.”

Bringing up the man’s arch nemesis was a low blow but it worked.

“Oh, if you love Andrew Lloyd Webber so much why don’t you go work for  _ him _ ,” Rafael sneered but his grip on the seat loosened.  “I swear, people think he’s some god and-”

The plane shook and the lights went out, terrified voices crying out in the dark.  Sonny leaned forward long enough to tell Javier that they were fine, to comfort the younger ones before he was jerked back into his seat with enough force to bruise his hip under the seat belt.  He groaned through it and found his heart picking up with the captain’s warning that they would be in for some rough riding in the next few minutes.  This was only the fourth time in his life that he’d set foot on a plane and didn’t know how common this was, but felt it was relatively serious when the flight attendants started buckling themselves in.  

It felt like they’d been put through a particularly rough spin cycle, getting thrown back and forth while the plane itself shook and dipped.  Sonny did his best to breathe through it, checking on the kids throughout.  Matty was crying but Vero was holding his hand, telling him something in Spanish that Sonny couldn’t understand.  He was about to turn to Rafael and comment that they were doing okay but out of nowhere the plane lost altitude.  His ears popped and his stomach seemed to float aimlessly, his attention pulled out of himself only by the sudden slap of Rafael’s hand on his own.

“I love you, Sonny,” Rafael called over the noise of the other passengers screaming and Sonny looked over, shocked.  “I do, I love you.”

Even through his surprise Sonny managed to pick Rafael’s hand up and bring it to his lips for a brief kiss as the oxygen masks dropped.

“It’ll be alright, Rafael,” he shouted back and tried his best to believe it.  

Seconds later, the plane evened out.  

The sensation of plummeting stopped and the ride smoothed again, the lights blinking on and staying this time.  Shocked, tremulous laughter echoed around the cabin and Sonny reached forward to rest a hand on Javier’s shoulder, delighting in the relieved look on the kid’s face as the captain came back on tell them that they’d passed through the worst of it and the remainder of the trip should be smooth sailing.

Sonny turned to look at Rafael, who had closed his eyes and now looked like he was concentrating on deep breathing while all their heart rates calmed to normal.  

He left their hands linked together for the rest of the flight, until Rafael finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

 

-

 

Several hours later their house came into view and Sonny’s ears were still buzzing, a wide grin plastered across his face as he worked to get all of the kids out of the limo and into the house.  He could feel Rafael’s eyes on him as he nudged Javier in the direction of his room and took Veronica’s book and promised her she could have it back in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.  Rafael helped carry their things in from the limo with Olivia supervising and grousing at them for getting in so much later than planned.  Sonny had offered her a brilliant smile in return because at this point there was nothing else he could do.

Carrying Matt in his arms, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and had to kick dozens of Hot Wheels out of the way as he walked.  The five year old clung for a minute to his shoulders but finally gave it up for the soft mattress and the familiarity of his own pillow.  Sonny pulled the comforter over him and turned to find Rafael in the doorway, arms crossed and stare direct.  The heat he found there made his skin shiver in awareness and he crossed the room in a flash, stepping past Rafael to close Matty’s door behind him.  

“Rafael, I-”

“I take it back.”

Sonny froze, studied the look of consternation on Rafael’ face, and then laughed.  Laughed because he’d slipped in a weak moment and blurted out his actual feelings.  Feelings Sonny was certain of because if there was anyone he knew better than Rafael’s children, it was Rafael himself.

“Oh yeah?” Sonny asked, crowding him closer.  “Take what back?”

“What I said.”

“When?”

“On the plane.”

“What did you say on the plane?”

“Mr. Carisi-”

“I’m pretty sure you called me Sonny on the plane, now that you mention it.”

Rafael opened and closed his mouth a few times before clearing his throat and starting again.  “Sonny.  When I said that I was… under duress.  I hope this doesn’t have to impact our working relationship.”

“Under duress, huh?” Sonny asked.  “So you didn’t mean it?”

A painfully long pause.

“No.”

“You’re lying to me, Rafael,” he observed knowingly.  “And I know, I see it enough.  You lie like Vero does - slowly.”

“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” Rafael told him in a stage whisper, turning away and running his hand through his hair.  “You… you take such good care of them.  They love you and you love them too, I know you do.  I can see it.”

“I’m failing to see a problem.”

“The problem is that what if this -  _ whatever this is  _ \- doesn’t work out?” Rafael asked him seriously.  “What if it ends badly and we can’t stand the sight of each other?  You’ll leave, you’ll find another job, and my children will have lost another parent.”

Sonny looked up, surprised.  

“You are,” Rafael sighed meaningfully, gaze imploring.  “You are another parent to them.  No one could ever replace Vanessa, but you’ve given them more love than I could ever hope to have made up after she died and I can’t risk them losing that.  Not again.  So if us staying apart keeps you here, keeps them happy, then I’ll live alone for the rest of my life.”

“Rafael,” Sonny started, leaning back onto the wall.  “How long have I been here?”

The question threw him but he still managed to say, “Two years.”

“That’s two years I’ve lived under your roof, helped you raise your children.  Two years that we’ve shared meals and holidays and sick days when all of us come down with something at once,” Sonny told him and it wasn’t hard to miss the softness in his voice.  “Two years of us being a family.  I hate to break it to you, but by any reasonable standard we’ve been together for a long time.”

Rafael scoffed.  

“And look, I can’t predict the future.  I won’t pretend to.  But what I can say is that no matter what happens between us, those kids are my priority.  I wouldn’t leave them, even if things get rocky between me and you,” he assured him, standing up from the wall and getting closer.  “But for the record, I don’t see that happening.  We’re a good team, me and you.”

“A family,” Rafael added and swallowed hard.  “You’ve been a part of me, a part of us, since you walked in the door, Sonny.  I’m just terrified of seeing you walk right out of it again.”

Sonny came close, held the weight of Rafael’s jaw in his hands before leaning close and insisting, “ _ I’m not going anywhere _ .”

Rafael closed the distance before he had a chance to, a brief glance of their lips that had Sonny chasing the sensation after they’d parted.  He didn’t have to chase it very far because suddenly Rafael’s mouth was there again, tongue teasing at the seam of Sonny’s lips until they parted to let him in.  He felt the warm glide of Rafael’s tongue on the roof of his mouth, the taste of his scotch on his tongue, and the pull of Rafael’s fingers in his hair as Sonny backed him against the wall.  Sonny’s stomach swooped low, the floor fell out from under him.  There was a vague ringing in his ears but the feel of Rafael’s mouth on his own kept him from floating away.

He didn’t know how long they kissed, couldn’t begin to guess, but knew it wasn’t long enough when Rafael pulled away and Sonny’s eyes fought to flutter open again.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Rafael murmured against his jaw.  

Sonny grinned.  

“About two years?” he asked knowingly and Rafael nodded.  “Yeah.  Same here.”

“For being in a relationship for two years, I’ve been spending an awful lot of nights alone,” Rafael teased, nipping at Sonny’s lower lip.  

A shiver tripped up his spine.  

“You offering to take me to bed, Mr. Barba?”

“Are you offering to join me, Mr. Carisi?”

Sonny shrugged nonchalantly, even as his heart raced.

“Only if I don’t have to be quiet about it.”

Rafael’s eyes darkened.  

_ I guess that’s a no _ , Sonny thought as Rafael took his hand and pulled him down the hall.


	8. Community Garden Headcanon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Started out as a headcanon but ended up closer to a fic. Prompt given by tobeconspicuous.

The community garden is Rafael’s, thank you very much.  

The plants are all from his abuelita’s garden in the Bronx, transplanted here after she passed.  In two years no one has stepped foot beyond the chain-link gates and Rafael had taken advantage of that, growing up her tomatoes in peace and quiet until the vines were lush and the fruits themselves were fat and red.  Catalina would have been so proud and that made him proud.  There was a surprising sense of calm there.

At least until Dominick Carisi Jr. -  _everyone calls me Sonny_ \- shows up.

The fact that Rafael even knows the man’s full given name is ridiculous, and that’s not even the most he knows about him.  He knows that he’s and Italian from Staten Island (delivered in a tone of voice that would suggest Rafael would have  _no idea_ otherwise), that his parents have been married for over forty years.  That he has a gaggle of sisters and a niece, all of whom he worships.  The only thing Rafael doesn’t know is why in the hell Dominick Carisi Jr. is doing there, particularly when he clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing.

It’s not like Rafael is anything approximating hospitable.  He’s rude, he glares daggers in Carisi’s direction the entire time.  He flatly refuses to help when it’s obvious that Carisi needs it and only barely avoids injuring the man when the puns start.

Oh, the puns.

Rafael was starting to think he’d bought a book to memorize, just to torment him.  When the first of Carisi’s zucchini’s grow in, the first thing he does is face Rafael with an ecstatic grin that’s almost attractive and then ruin it with, “Thanks for not  _squashing_  my dreams.”

One day Rafael is waiting to see the man lumber into the garden around nine, his usual, but it doesn’t happen.  Sonny doesn’t come in until closer to eleven, getting to work without so much as a syllable in Rafael’s direction.  He has dark circles under his eyes and he moves like he’s exhausted and it goes against everything in his nature to ask if Carisi is okay.  Which is met with a tired smile and a soft, “I’m alright, Raf.  Thanks.”

Oh, yeah. 

Carisi calls him “Raf”.

Rafael does his best to take that answer at face value but still can’t help the worry niggling when Carisi leaves an hour later.  He packs up soon after, belatedly realizing that something shiny had fallen where Carisi keeps his tools.

A shield.  Badge number 0188.

Dominick Carisi Jr. is a cop?

He knows it’s important that this gets back to its owner but he doesn’t know a thing about Carisi that would help him get it there - not his address, not his phone number.  The best he can do is call the precincts in the area until one agrees to employing a Detective Dominick Carisi Jr.  The knowledge that Carisi is not only a cop but also a detective is shocking to him but he hides it the best he can while he Ubers to the 16th, badge in hand.  When he gets to Carisi’s office - the Special Victims Unit, it turns out - he’s met with the warm gaze of a woman a few years older than him, with big brown eyes and a kind smile.  

“Mr. Barba,” she starts.  “They told me you were coming.  Do you have a minute?”

She gestures toward her office and Rafael follows because he really didn’t have anything else to do.

“Detective…” he starts and the woman smiles.

“Lieutenant, actually.  Lieutenant Olivia Benson,” she corrects.  “I hope this isn’t too intrusive of me, but I just wanted to thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” he replies, thinking of the badge.  “I just didn’t want Mr. Carisi to get in any trouble.”

“No, not about his shield.  I mean for helping him so much.”

Rafael balks.

“What?”

“He talks about you a lot.  How helpful you are, how much he’s been enjoying your company,” Olivia says with a smile.  “He’s always been overeager but after a few months ago, after he came so close to dying, he hasn’t quite been the same.  His therapist recommended gardening as a way of relieving the stress.”

The floor drops out from under him.  

Not just at the realization that Carisi talks about him.  More at the knowledge that he’d been in danger.  Real danger.  There was a good chance that Dominick Carisi Jr. -  _everyone calls me Sonny_ \- might never have wandered into their garden and he would never have known.  Might have seen it on the news but would never have realized just what the world was missing out on.  Someone kind, someone warm.  Someone energetic and helpful.  He’s surprised to find his breath grown short while Olivia finishes thanking him for his kindness toward Sonny, with a promise to return his shield the next time he’s in.

Rafael leaves in a daze.

Rafael has a plan.

The next time Dominick Carisi Jr. -  _Sonny_  - comes into the community garden he’s met with two extra plots, clean and ready for use.  His own miserable scrap of land in the corner has been cleared and fertilized, labeled in neat handwriting that clearly isn’t his own.  

“Raf!” he cries, thrilled.  “Did you do this?”

He shrugs but still can’t stop imagining that newscast he never had to hear.

“You’re doing well.  You deserve more space.  And I’m - I’m sorry for being an asshole about it.”

Sonny beams.

“You’re not an asshole, Raf.  Besides, I like grumpy men.”

Rafael scoffs and rolls his eyes to high heaven but it’s only so he can hide the fact that that warm feeling in his chest wants him to smile instead.

They spend another month or two, side by side.  Planting flowers and herbs and vegetables alike, debating where or not they could manage an apple tree.  Rafael is not always kind, not always patient, but Sonny always looks at him like he is.  And maybe it’s less about the company than it is about Sonny himself when, at the end of their harvest, Rafael suggests Sonny come over and help him cook their bounty.  The suggestion was a risk but it was one he would take a dozen times if it made Sonny smile like he did then, like there was nothing he’d rather do than wash produce and argue about sauces with a man ten years older than him.

There’s nothing Rafael would rather do, either.  


	9. Amnesia/Memory Loss AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amnesia/memory loss AU requested by booyahfordhamlaw and an anon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY CAN I NOT WRITE ANYTHING SHORT THAT STANDS ON ITS OWN?!?!

The car comes out of nowhere.

He hardly has time to acknowledge the gleam of dark metal to Carisi before it’s plowing into them, a god-awful cacophony of breaking glass and screeching metal.  He hears a sickening crack in the middle of it all and has the presence of mine to wince even as he’s thrust against his seat belt and feels his head whip around with the force of the impact.  The car spins only briefly, even if it feels like hours by the time the back end of the sedan hits a lightpost and brings them to a sudden halt.

The engine hisses and he can hear the cries of people outside their car but all he can feel for a long moment is a hand reaching out for him, patting his thigh a few times before reaching for his hand.  

“Raf, you okay?”

Carisi’s voice is groggy and slurred.  Either that or Rafael’s hearing is and he’s not sure which makes more sense in that moment.  The good news is that the sirens approaching don’t seem slurred at all as they got louder and louder.  The bad news is that he’s not sure why in the hell Carisi is referring to him as “Raf”.  

“Yeah,” he finally answers, feeling pain radiating up the side of his neck.  “I think I’m okay.”

Carisi wasn’t.  He could see the red-brown smear on the glass from where Carisi’s skull had cracked against the window.  He was too busy staring at that to notice that his hand had been picked up and pressed against the soft flesh of Carisi’s lips.

“Thank God,” he breathes and keeps their fingers intertwined.

_ Well, _ Rafael thinks briefly as darkness creeps in at the edges.  

_ That’s new. _

 

* * *

 

 

“You clearly don’t understand what I’m saying,” Rafael repeats for the dozenth time in half an hour, “We are  _ not together _ .  We have never been together, not for one day of our entire lives.  We are colleagues.  I have literally no idea why he believes we’re married.”

The doctor gives him a disinterested stare.

“The fact remains that Mr. Carisi is convinced of this fact and experiences significant distress when corrected,” the man replies in a heavy Texan drawl as he flips through a file labeled with Carisi’s name.  “His blood pressure spikes, his pulse increases.  He experiences shortness of breath.  With this concussion on top of the others, it’s not surprising that he’s confused.”

“Others?  Other concussions?”

“At least two,” the doctor confirms.  “Which as a police officer is not entirely unusual.”

The thought of Carisi injured, in spite of everything else, still manages to send a slighter of unease over his skin.

“So what do you want me to do?” Rafael asks as he cradles his broken wrist in its still-drying cast.  “Keep agreeing with him while we live in separate apartments?  Separate jobs?  This can’t possible be maintained!”

“I wouldn’t recommend Mr. Carisi stay on his home until his cognition has returned to baseline function.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Mr. Barba-”

“ _ No _ ,” he insists.  

“Then please, be my guest.  Go in there and tell a colleague you supposedly respect the truth and potentially set off another medical event.”

Rafael sneers and turns away, opening the door to Carisi’s room again to find the man standing next to the bed and buttoning his shirt.  Moving of their own accord, his eyes sweep over the width of Carisi’s pale chest and the planes of muscle down his abdomen before landing on the parted button and zipper at his waist.  Miserable and remarkably anxious for someone on pain pills, Rafael turns around and exhales loudly while Carisi chuckles behind him.

“Raf, what’re you doing?” he asks on a laugh.  “I’m pretty sure this is nothing you haven’t seen before.”

_ And you’d be very, very wrong. _

Refusing to answer, Rafael texts Olivia and checks to see if Carisi’s parents have been notified.  In a moment she replies that they have and that they’ve been instructed to go to Carisi’s apartment in Washington Heights to collect his things to come stay with them until he’s healed.  His younger sister, Bella, is on her way to the hospital to get him.

_ Don’t bother,  _ Rafael texts back.   _ Carisi is coming home with me.   _

**_What?_ **

_ Long story.  We’re leaving soon. _

“Is that the Lieu?” Carisi asks from behind him.  

“Yes.”

“I knew it.  You make this weird grunt thing under your breath when you’re talking to her,” Carisi tells him matter-of-factly and he briefly wonders if Carisi has been taking more note of him than he previously realized.  “Did you tell her I’m fine?”

“She knows,” he replies instead.  “Are you decent?”

He hears a very sarcastic scoff and has to bite his lip to keep from lashing out.  

“Yeah, I’m decent,” Carisi replies finally.  “What, you don’t trust yourself all of a sudden?  Thinking about trying for a quickie before the nurse brings the discharge paperwork?”

God help him.

“Nope,” he answers honestly but would be lying if his dick didn’t give a firm twitch of interest.  Traitor.  “You need to fill out your paperwork.  Your sister is on her way and I’d really like to avoid her if at all possible.”

Because explaining that he has to play a fictional husband because of her brother’s head injury is too much for him to handle at that moment.  

“You’re going to have to fit in with the family eventually, Raf.”

No, he won’t.

“No, I won’t,” he shoots back and reaches for the door handle.  “I’ve put it off thus far and I have every expectation of continuing that.  Let’s go.”

He leaves the hospital room and heads for the nurse’s station, feeling his wrist smart as he swings it at his side.  Carisi is right behind him, undoubtedly smirking at his obvious frustration as he stands at the desk and requests Detective Carisi’s discharge paperwork.  It’s a goddamn miracle when he doesn’t hear the man’s amused voice behind him, playfully asking why he’s forgotten to use his married name after almost a year of wedded bliss.

Because yes, they’ve been married a year according to the information he gave to his nurse.  

He barely has the chance to marvel his good fortune before he feels a warm hand on his lower back and a set of decadently full lips at his ear, murmuring in a tone clearly meant only for him.

“You look good bossing people around, Rafi,” Carisi tells him and Rafael’s mouth goes dry before he can begin to think of an answer.  Luckily a kiss is pressed just behind his ear before one is required of him and he fights to keep himself upright as his heart stutters in his chest.   

God help him.


	10. Best Friend's Sibling AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Best Friend's Sibling AU, requested by an anon. Supplemented by an idea for mistaken identity provided by tobeconspicuous.

Teresa Carisi is known for several things.

Expensive tastes being one.

Expensive tastes in men being another.

She was also known for planning one hell of a party, and this was the aspect of her that Rafael Barba most enjoyed at the moment.  It was fall in New York and she’d used the natural palette of the season in vibrant greens, shimmering golds, and decadent crimsons to light up the terrace in string lights and lanterns.  Rafael was certain it was meant to call back the nostalgia of childhood with fireflies and crunching leaves but that wasn’t the childhood he had so he tried to view it as an aesthetic rather than something he was supposed to relate to. 

The scotch was good, at least.

“You look like you’re enjoying your scotch more than your evening.”

The voice is familiar, the accent strong but not unbecoming for a woman who makes casual charm more appealing than all the polished and practiced grace in Manhattan.

“Teresa,” he tells her fondly, turning to see the woman herself approaching in a burnished gold dress that hugged her thin frame tightly.  “You’ve done a terrific job.”  

“You’re just saying that because I stocked your drink,” she tells him as she leans in for a buss on each cheek, her perfume light in his nose.  It’s Viktor and Rolf, he notes with a smirk.  She’s on the prowl tonight, looking for the next wallet to keep her company.  

“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.

She laughs and leans against the balcony railing, hip to the thin black iron and her good side to the soft lighting.  The motion suggests there’s already someone at the party in her sights and she wants to present herself accordingly.  

“So,” Rafael starts, “Who is he?”

“Hmm.”

“Teresa,” he admonishes and she grins.  

“One of your senior partners.”

“You’re awful.  Which one?”

“Hanson.”

“You’re worse than awful.  He just divorced his fifth wife two weeks ago.”

“Oh, how terrible for him,” she replied with faux sympathy.  “Sounds to me like he’s in need of company.”

Rafael snorted into his drink as he took another sip.  

“Hey Teresa,” another voice called out from behind them in the same Staten Island lilt and Rafael turned to see another tall blond approaching, this time a hair north of six feet tall with lighter eyes and lips Teresa would have been willing to pay good money for.  “Why is everything at this party written in frigging illegible cursive?  I’m trying to order wine, not decipher hieroglyphics.”  

“It’s called design, brother of mine.  Style.  Maybe learn about it sometime.”

Brother?

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies on his way out to the terrace but nearly stops short when he makes eye contact with Rafael.  His blue eyes grow wide as they rake over Rafael, from the tips of his shined shoes to the careful part in his hair.  Rafael arches a brow at the quick pink tongue that flashes out to wet his lips and it’s only Teresa’s voice that brings them both back to the present.

“Rafael, I can’t believe you haven’t met my kid brother,” Teresa says playfully, as though fully aware of the weight of both their stares.  “Rafael Barba, this is Dominick Carisi Jr.  My younger brother.”

“Everyone calls me Sonny,” the younger brother offers kindly with a starstruck smile that plays far too well into Rafael’s ego.  He offers a hand that Rafael takes, holding it just a hair too long for it to be considered socially appropriate.

“Sonny,” Rafael repeats, trying the name out.  Enjoying how it whispers from between his teeth, hums against his palate.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Same.  I’ll, uh.  I’ll be in here, out of your way.  Sorry to interrupt.”

And Sonny is sweet.

Surprising, for a relative of Teresa’s.

“He’s in law school you know,” the woman herself offers kindly and Rafael looks over, surprised.  “Fordham, year two.”

“Full time student?” Rafael finds himself asking and it’s less about knowing about a friend’s family member than it is about sussing out how old Sonny might be.  He’s gratified when Teresa shakes her head.

“Part time, at least for now.  He’s in the sex business.”

Rafael’s head whips around so fast he can hear the discs pop as they align. 

“ _ What? _ ”

“He’s made a living out of it,” Teresa confirms, obviously enjoying the scandalized look on Rafael’s face.  “I wouldn’t think it would be much of a career but he must be doing something right, though I’d really rather not know what it is.”

Rafael murmurs some vague agreement - possibly just a noise - and tells her that he needs a refill, not even bothering to lie to himself as his eyes seek out blond hair amidst a sea of barely recognizable faces.  He finds Sonny at the bar, talking with one of the other partners at Rafael’s firm.  An older man.  Hanson, he realizes with a grin.  The one Teresa had been hoping to snag before the end of the night.  Except here Sonny was, laughing warmly and leaning close to joke under his breath in a stage whisper that was clearly meant to charm and disarm.

This was a charity fundraiser, after all, and Teresa undoubtedly brought her obviously affable brother to loosen grips on checkbooks much larger than Rafael’s.

When Rafael gets close enough to overhear the conversation, he’s surprised at the topic of conversation.  

“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Hanson,” Sonny says and takes a sip of the red wine sitting in front of him, “But I’m all booked for the night.  Sorry.”

Was Sonny’s profession a known secret among Teresa’s parties?  

“I’ll convince you one of these days, Dominick,” Hanson chuckles and his eyes drift to the terrace again.  Undoubtedly Teresa, arching her back and sighing as though having no idea anyone would be watching.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d love to thank your sister for throwing one hell of a party.”

“I know she’d love hearing that from you,” Sonny allows and raises a glass in farewell as he steps off the barstool and heads outside.  Rafael takes that opportunity before he’s even really made the plan, claiming the seat next to Sonny’s before Hanson has made it more than a few feet.

“So, Mr. Carisi,” he starts, pulling Sonny’s eager attention toward him, “What does booking you for the night entail?”

The man grins, his mouth bee-stung and flush with color.

“Negotiable,” he answers and blinks prettily.  “We can start with a drink, though, if you feel like talking.”

Rafael does, as it turns out.

So does Sonny.

He talks about law school briefly but Rafael manages to steer him away from work despite Sonny’s obvious interest in what he does, if only because Rafael may not be entirely comfortable talking about Sonny’s profession so openly - even if Sonny seems to be.  Instead they talk about wine and food and Staten Island, Rafael even going so far as to offer the fact that he was raised in the Bronx by a teacher who harasses him if he doesn’t call to talk once a week.  They talk about movies and Rafael pretends to be horrified at how much Sonny adores The Godfather, swearing Italians should object to the portrayal of mobsters but Sonny only shakes his head and says the film “transcends stereotypes, okay”.  

Before either of them have realized it, they’ve enjoyed two drinks apiece and more than a few of the chocolate truffles set out on the bar and the look in Sonny’s eyes has gone from eager interest to something much heavier.  Something that pulls at Rafael from the tips of his toes, that brings him closer.  That compels his hand to come up and brush Sonny’s knee.  Briefly, teasing.  Testing.  A shot in the dark that pays off when Sonny’s eyes dilate and he knocks back the rest of his wine.  

“You know, I saw this amazing painting in the foyer earlier,” he offers innocently and Rafael sees through it anyway.  “Want to see?”

“Sure,” he smirks and leaves a generous tip at the bar before sliding off his stool and following Sonny out of the main room and into a hallway lined with Teresa’s warm gold fairy lights.  Somehow he can smell warm cider and pine and he’s sure it’s a candle but it mixes and swirls with the surreality of the man leading him along, farther away from the party and even farther away from Rafael’s good sense.

When they kiss the lights behind his eyes have little to do with Teresa’s decor.

Sonny backs him into the wall down a dark hallway and slots a knee between his legs and Rafael has never been as caught up in a moment as he was in that one, ears buzzing and blood heavy with the smell of Sonny’s cologne in his nose.  The feel of him, hot and pinning him in place with the force of his kiss and the insistent rocking of his thigh between Rafael’s own.  He tastes like dark red wine and darker chocolate and Rafael has never been as close to a mortal sin as he was then, lusting after a man he just met with a ferocity that floors him.

“Come home with me, Rafael,” Sonny murmurs against the line of his jaw.  “I don’t have scotch but I’m sure I can think of something else for you to taste.”

His vision swims at the edges and his breathing hitches and he’s nodding at Sonny  long before it ever occurs to him to ask how much.

Sonny pulls him from the brownstone by the hand.

Pulls him down the street, into a cab.

Pulls Rafael’s hand into his lap as they speed around Manhattan, the bright lights on the outside of the car casting them into ever-shifting shadows.  He gets a glimpse of Sonny’s jaw, the brush strokes of silver above his ears. The faint growth of stubble on his face and the distinguished line of his nose.  Individual pieces of a puzzle he’s dying to put together with his tongue, his teeth, the blunt edges of his fingernails.  With his mouth as he claims Sonny’s with his own, pulling him down with one hand wrapped around the man’s tie and the other inching up the inside of Sonny’s thigh.

A puzzle only completed once Sonny has pulled him through his front door, has pushed Rafael’s jacket from his shoulders and yanked his burnt orange tie from around his neck.  Once they’ve stumbled into Sonny’s bed, bare save for the moonlight and the rake of their eyes over naked skin.  Rafael feels complete for the first time in a long time as Sonny fits himself into Rafael’s body; a long, hard drag that has him seeing stars and burying his hands in the thick, wheat-colored waves of Sonny’s hair.

He comes with Sonny’s voice in his ear and falls asleep the same way.

Rafael wakes before dawn with Sonny’s thin frame curled so neatly against his own.  He leans into it for only a moment before the implications of his actions sink in and he’s forced to slink from Sonny’s bed - away from the warmth, away from the intoxicating feeling of Sonny’s breath on his skin and the thump of his heart under his ear.  Shame should probably be the foremost thing in his mind as he dresses and looks for his jacket but all he can feel is regret.  Regret that this perfect connection was most likely contrived, at least on the other man’s end.  

The chemistry was fictional, or so he tells himself as he drops a neat fold of cash onto Sonny’s dresser and slips from the room.

Fictional, he repeats as he catches a cab.

Fictional, he insists as he tries to push from his mind clear blue eyes and all potential consequences for his actions.

 

\-- 

 

He’s at work, making notes about a case when his actions catch up to him in the form of Carmen’s voice on the intercom.

“Mr. Barba?  There’s a Mr. Dominick Carisi Jr. to see you.”

Barba flushes a mottled red and somehow stammers out an affirmative for Carmen to let Mr. Carisi through.  He watches with bated breath as the doorknob turns and the door itself swings open, revealing a face he hasn’t seen in close to a week.  Not since the night of Teresa’s party, when Sonny had taken him home and fucked him breathless and half out of his mind.  The Sonny that had driven him into the mattress with firm hips and a soft voice was gone now, replaced by a man in a slim fitting suit with an angry expression and a badge on his-

Wait.

Badge?

“Counselor,” Sonny greets bitterly as he throws a familiar wad of cash onto his desk.  “Care to tell me what the hell that’s about?”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah, ‘oh God’ is right.  What in the hell were you thinking?” he asks pointedly, color situated high on his cheeks in righteous anger.  “Here I am, thinking I’ve met this great guy at one of Teresa’s stupid cocktail parties.  He’s smart, he’s hot.  He’s looking at me like I’m something he can take apart with his teeth.”

_ Well,  _ Rafael admits to himself.   _ You weren’t wrong about that. _

“And we have this great night together, best sex of my life.”

_ Not wrong about that either. _

“And then I wake up and he’s gone and instead of a number I get  _ money  _ on my dresser?” he asks rhetorically and now he looks close to livid.  “What in the hell were you even  _ thinking _ , Rafael?  I don’t know what kind of impression I put off, but I thought we were on a date.  A real one.  Not one that’s settled up at the end of the night.”

“I- Your sister, she said-”

“What?” Sonny interrupts, “Teresa told you I was a prostitute?”

Rafael clears his throat, loosens his tie.

“She said you were, and I quote, ‘in the sex business’.”   


Sonny gapes at him.

“Jesus Christ.”  He gives up staring at Rafael and turns in a circle instead, looking skyward as though Rafael’s ceiling would give him answers.  “If I’ve told her once I’ve told her a thousand times, that joke just is not funny.”

“Joke?”

Sonny’s blue eyes finally turn back to him and he’s relieved to find the anger gone, replaced with irritation that was softening by the second.

He replies, “Yeah, it was a joke.  I’m a Detective for the Special Victims Unit here in Manhattan.  She thinks that bit is hysterical and has been using it on unsuspecting strangers since I started six years ago.”

Detective. 

Special Victims. 

Joke.  

_ Detective.   _

“Oh God.”

It’s the best he can do, really.  Especially now that the full weight of his mistake has been revealed and he can’t decide if he wants to die or dance or disappear.  The connection was real, the chemistry was truly theirs.  Of course… he’s also made sure to ruin that with the ridiculous misconception that Sonny is a hooker.  He’s surprised when Sonny only laughs and brings his hand to his mouth to cover his building mirth.

“You should see yourself,” Sonny manages around giggles.  “You look like I just read you your rights.”

“I deserve a lot worse than that,” Rafael admits and looks at Sonny imploringly.  “I’m sorry.  You deserved much better than what you got from me and all I can say is that I hope to die of embarrassment in the next few minutes and that will have to suffice as restitution.”

“That seems a bit extreme.”

“So is assuming a career as a sex worker from a bad joke.”

“Yeah, well.  I guess Teresa was hoping she’d get my commission,” Sonny replies with a scoff and Rafael finds himself smiling despite himself.  “So, counselor.  Just for my own satisfaction - it was worth the money, right?  I mean, come on.  I don’t know about you but that was a fireworks show like I haven’t seen since Independence Day on Staten Island when I was eight.”

Rafael can’t help it.

He laughs.

“More than,” he admits and the wide grin on Sonny’s face makes him think that he may be forgiven.  “And I don’t know about Staten Island but I’m pretty sure you beat out every show I’ve ever seen and if you can stand to be seen with me, I’d like to take you out.  As an apology, of course.”

“One condition.”

“What’s that?”

“I pay,” Sonny replies and Rafael scoffs.  “If I see you reach for a wallet even once the whole night’s off and you can sleep alone.”

“I wasn’t going to anyway?”

Sonny gives a casual shrug as he reaches for the doorknob and pauses long enough to wink over his shoulder before suddenly he’s gone, door closed again.

Rafael grins the rest of the afternoon.


	11. In Love with Best Friend's Partner AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In love with best friend's partner AU, requested by an anon on Tumblr. Improved by tobeconspicuous for the alternate definition of "partner" and to Robin Hood, who provided the amazing line about taking the lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all the comments and kudos on this one... forgive me if I don't reply to all of them, I'm so sorry. I let myself get buried and now I'll never dig my way out. Just know that I see every one of them and appreciate them all more than I could ever say. You're all wonderful and I still can't believe the support you're willing to offer or even that you pay these little things any attention. You're the best. 
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

Rafael Barba is gorgeous. 

A masterpiece framed in lean muscle and bronze skin, a work of art in black fabric and thick, dark hair.  His green eyes are bright and observant and his voice is an arrogant, endlessly arresting tenor.  He moves with fluid grace that borders on aggressive and Sonny keeps waiting for the day when it ceases to steal his breath straight from his chest but it's been three months and it hasn't happened yet.  He's started to wonder if it ever will.  Sonny can’t remember a time before he hung on the man’s every word, had been desperate for a glance or a few minutes of his attention.  For three months he's come to this room after his shift, for three months he's brought him and Amanda dinner as an excuse to see him. 

He’s pathetic, probably.

Hopeless.

So in love it hurt him to think or breathe or even look in Rafael’s direction.  Which happened a lot, considering that Amanda was his best friend and Rafael was her partner.  Dancing partner, not… they weren’t dating.  They were both competitive dancers, specializing in the tango.  Amanda did it for fun in addition to running her own studio for kids.  Rafael, as far as Sonny knew, only did the competition circuit and just… ceased to exist outside of competitions.  This was his last year before retirement, Amanda’s last year before she quit competing to focus on her business, and the two of them were determined to go out with a bang - preferably a bang in the shape of a first place trophy to display in Amanda’s studio.  Her sudden obsessive dedication to this was the only reason Sonny had ever met Rafael in the first place, having heard his name for years without ever meeting the man.  

Sonny was introduced to Amanda Rollins almost ten years ago, as two halves of a blind date.  Sonny was just getting his restaurant off the ground and Amanda was new to New York, looking to start over.  The date had gone well - laughter, joking, arguing over sports.  Amanda was gorgeous, funny, smart as a whip.  He’d enjoyed her company immensely but when it came time to brave a goodnight kiss the spark just… wasn’t there.  Not the way he wanted it to be, and Amanda seemed to agree with her grudging smile and shrug that suggested  _ darn the luck _ .  But they became fast friends anyway and had hardly parted since, supporting each other through businesses opening and struggling and beginning the slow trudge toward being successful.  Sonny had never been more grateful for a person in his life because Amanda never did anything by halves, including friendship.  

Which made him feel even more guilty when he realized that he’d never been very involved in the competition part of her career.  He was making up for lost time, though.  Feeding her every night and forcing her to go home when she was dead on her feet and her babysitter was due to leave in half an hour.  It certainly was for Amanda, his best friend, and not the stunning man whose arms she spent every night in.  

A fact that she seemed to take for granted, Sonny thought bitterly as he scaled the stairs to their rehearsal space.  

_ Amanda _ , getting to feel all that lean muscle up close.

_ Amanda _ , getting to watch up close as sweat formed at his hairline and slipped effortlessly down the column of his throat.

Amanda, who had taken one look at Sonny’s gobsmacked face and informed him without a hint of kindness that  _ Rafael didn’t date during competition season, and even if he did it wouldn’t be a dorky cook from Staten Island. _

He was a chef, thank you very much.

Also, not a dork.

But he was from Staten Island - he couldn’t deny that.

A fact he lamented as he approached the closed door at the top of the stairs.  He heard music already, the dramatic acoustic guitar flourishes that signaled the beginning of the piece.  Sonny had memorized it within a week, watching their rehearsals until he felt like he would be able to pick up the guitar himself and play the song from memory.  He was pretty sure the dance steps were ingrained in his memory but those he wouldn’t be able to mimic if his life depended on it.  For all his finesse in the kitchen, he had two left feet and they were both wearing cement shoes.     

Sonny pushed the door open with his shoulder, carrying the bags in both hands.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.  Nick’s giving me a hard time about the front of the house and - oh.”

Rafael is alone.

Sonny catches him mid-lunge, thighs taut and back straight as his shirt pulls across the expanse of his chest and Sonny’s stomach twinges hard.  Heart in his throat, he watches as Rafael finishes the movement and uses the remote to pause the song.  Sonny stands in the doorway like a deer caught in the headlights, trying very hard to keep his eyes on Rafael’s rather than the way his pants fitted over his ass and the faint sheen of sweat that covered every inch of skin he could see.  

“Sonny,” Rafael says breathlessly and the sound heads south faster than Sonny can do anything about it.  He found himself wishing to hear his name on Rafael’s lips in another context, although preferably just as breathlessly.  “What are you doing here?”

“Bringing you dinner.  Like I do every night.”

“Amanda went home an hour ago,” he tells him, reaching for a towel to wrap around his shoulders.  “She didn’t tell you?”

“What?  No,” Sonny replies, juggling the bags to get a finger on his Apple watch.  The screen illuminates but Amanda’s only unread message says nothing about going home for the night.  It’s two words, and it makes Sonny’s ears heat.

 

**_Have fun._ **

 

He didn’t know what to do about that.  He was torn between thanking her or threatening her or offering to babysit for a month.

“I’m sure you need to get that home,” Rafael suggests dismissively and Sonny blinks in surprise, looking up from his watch.  

“What?”

“I doubt I’m your primary intention here.  Amanda is probably expecting you and Jessie will want to see her father.”

Sonny stares, speechless for once in his life.  His face could only be making an expression that conveyed the utmost shock and confusion but it was missed, Rafael choosing to look out the open window as the sun finished setting.   It was all he could do to set the food down and clear his throat pointedly.  How was it possible that after years Rafael wouldn’t know that?

Wait, Sonny knew the answer.

It was they were both so work-oriented that he doubted it ever came up.

“I’m, uh… I’m not Jessie’s dad,” he offered finally.

Rafael raised an eyebrow.  “I see.  It’s admirable of you, adopting another man’s child.”

“No, I didn’t adopt her either.  I’m not… Amanda and I aren’t like that.  We’re just friends.”

This seemed genuinely surprising to him and Sonny shifted his feet because what he  _ should  _ be doing is suggesting that Amanda wasn’t his type much these days.  His type, of course, being snarky dancers with green eyes and dry sense of humor who hardly looked at Sonny for more than a few seconds at a time… probably because they thought they he was straight and in a committed relationship with Rafael’s work partner.  Instead he studied Rafael’s profile until the man looked over at Sonny, a small smirk gracing the curve of his lips.  

All of a sudden Sonny can’t shake the feeling that he’s figured out why Amanda’s “just friend” has been hanging out in their space almost every night for months.

“If Amanda’s not expecting you,” he starts, “There’s no reason I couldn’t take a break for dinner.  If the offer’s still on the table, anyway.”

“Of course,” Sonny said quickly, unable to fathom the fact that Rafael may have expected him to say no.  “Come on.  I hope you like chicken marsala.”

“Only if the marsala is dry.”

Sonny scoffed, “What kind of chef do you take me for?”

Rafael never answers but his smirk is answer enough.

Maybe it’s his useless heart doing the talking, but he feels like dinner goes well.  They sit on the floor, backs to the wall.  Shoulders almost touching but not quite.  Their careers don’t have much in common but they find common ground anyway.  Rafael talks about his scholarships to Julliard, his early career as a competitive dancer before he took several years to act as a choreographer for the rash of dancing movies that were popular for a while.  His sisters had seen every one of them in theaters, swooning the entire time.  Sonny found himself inordinately smug about the fact that he was having dinner with the man who’d created them.

Rafael had also expressed interest in Sonny’s work, asking about culinary school and his adventures working his way through every possible position a chef might take.  He talked about being a sous chef under Bayard Ellis, a line cook for Lisa Hassler.  It wasn’t until he’d met Nick Amaro working for chef Olivia Benson that he’d gotten the confidence to try out his own place.  The two of them had gone off with Olivia’s blessing - and her financial backing - to create Maggie’s, a fusion restaurant specializing in Latin-Italian.  It was a rough start but they were doing well now.  With the combination of Sonny’s talents in the kitchen and Nick’s business sense and charm with guests, they were starting to get some notice.  Rafael was quick to express admiration for Sonny’s work ethic, knowing just how difficult it was to get a restaurant going in New York.  Let alone a successful one.

Sonny liked talking with him.

Liked his shrewd gaze assessing Sonny’s every word, the warm green as tangible on his skin as an actual touch from anyone else.  He liked Rafael poking fun at his accent, liked the way he found reasons to brush Sonny’s hand as they ate.  There was more spark in one of Rafael’s eye rolls than there had been in all of his previous relationships combined and Sonny couldn’t help feeling vindicated.  He felt like he’d been proven right.  He  _ knew  _ the two of them would get along - all they’d needed was the opportunity.

“So, what’s next?” Sonny asks some time later, after they’ve finished, crumpling a napkin and tossing it into his styrofoam to-go box.  

“What do you mean?”

“Next,” Sonny repeated.  “Once you’re done wiping the floor with these guys.  I’m guessing you’re not going to do nothing unless you’re independently wealthy.”

“Well, I’m definitely not that,” Rafael laughed and Sonny smiled at the sound.  “Besides, I’m not ready to retire from anything yet.  I’ll go crazy.”

“Ah, I don’t know.  Golf all day and dinner at three in the afternoon could suit you,”

Rafael glares.  “Hardly.”

Sonny grins right back.

“So?”

“So… I don’t know,” Rafael sighs, shaking his head.  “I’ve made the mistake of choosing a career and skill set that don’t age with me, nor do they lend themselves to other professions.  In a few more years my knees will probably give out on me so it’s better I retire before I get to that point.  It’s the  _ after  _ that’s the problem.”

Sonny nodded thoughtfully.

“You’re very talented, Rafael,” he said earnestly, holding firm as the man’s eyes shot up to meet his.  Seamlessly, earthen green to sky blue.  “And more than that, you’re smart.  If anyone can figure it out, you can.  Hell - open up a class for adults in Amanda’s studio.  You’d be a hit, if only for the dance moms who need the eye candy.  You’d have at least one student before you printed the sign up sheet.”

He quirked an eyebrow playfully.  “Oh?”

“I mean, you’d probably better charge me triple,” he added, “I’m kind of hopeless.  I’ve seen newborn giraffes more graceful than me on a dance floor.”

“Somehow that’s not difficult for me to believe,” Rafael teased and despite the mild insult warmth washed over Sonny’s chest, “But I don’t believe in hopeless cases.  You just need to consider dance as something you do already.  Think of how you work in the kitchen, dancing around your underlings.”

Sonny sputtered.  

“That’s not dancing,” he insisted, “That’s doing your best to avoid catching a blade while someone’s slicing something up.”

“Dancing with higher stakes.  You’re quick, what you do is fluid or it would take that much longer for you to accomplish anything.  You’re aware of what’s going on around you, of who’s in your periphery,” Rafael tells him, the timbre of his voice darkening as he looked at Sonny unflinchingly.  “That awareness is where it starts.  Steps, movement, the concept of creating and destroying space with your body.  The push and pull, the synchronicity.  The rhythm you settle into as you work.”

And why did Sonny get the feeling they weren’t talking about cooking anymore?

He swallowed, nodding.  

“Yeah,” he said on little more than a whisper, “Yeah, I can see that.”

For a long moment they stare, holding eye contact neither seem willing to break.  Then the moment ripples outward and fades away into nothing, until Sonny clears his throat while Rafael grins.  Sonny watches as he closes the to-go box and stands up from the floor.  Quick, agile.  Graceful in a way that suggested ample experience creating and destroying space, in setting a rhythm.  A rhythm Sonny would kill to know firsthand.  But that wasn’t in the cards for tonight, even if his heart kicked hard in his chest as he stood and gathered the remains of their meal.  He tossed the boxes in the trash and brushed the wrinkles from his pants, all too aware of Rafael’s eyes on him.

“I guess you’re going back to work,” Sonny suggests.  

“For a few more hours, at least.”

“I’ll let you get to it then,” he said and offered a lopsided grin before grabbing Amanda’s portion and heading for the door.  “Don’t work too hard, alright?  Give yourself a break - you can’t win if you’re dead on your feet.”

Rafael only nods, distracted as he moves to stretch his arms out again.  Sonny watches for only a moment before turning away, already finding himself looking forward to the next night he could come back.

“Sonny,” Rafael calls as he reached the door.  

Sonny turned, hoping very much Rafael would ask him to stay a little longer but he had no such luck.  Something indecipherable flickered across Rafael’s face and then a decision was made.  

“Thank you for dinner,” he says and reaches for his water bottle on the bench.  “You’re very talented, too.”

That odd kick in his chest is back but Sonny accepts the compliment with a smile and closes the door behind him, trying his very best to contain the excitement fighting to bubble up in his chest.

It doesn’t work.

 

* * *

 

 

They won.

Sonny knew they would.  He knew because he’d been watching the two of them all this time, the watchful bystander as all these individual steps and notes blended into something seamless and natural for the two of them.  Envy wasn’t something that came naturally to Sonny but it managed to find him anyway with the image of the two of them together, moving as two halves of a whole that swept across the dance floor like they were only ever hovering above it.  Sonny wasn’t a dancer, not in his wildest dreams would he have been able to do any of the things he watched them do, but it stung watching Rafael with someone else.  He’d never quite been able to shake the warmth he’d found after their dinner together, and if anything his feelings had only grown.  

Envy is probably not what compels him to stay long after the rest of the audience has gone, though.  It’s probably something closer to longing because he fears this will be the last he sees of Rafael.  He’s been replaying their conversation last week on repeat, hung up on the uncertainty of the man’s voice.  Sonny knew what that felt like.  To be drifting, not really tied down anywhere when the ties were all you really wanted.  He’d heard some of that in Rafael that night, wondering where to go next.  He’s spent days working him up to this sense of urgency because something in him knows that his time in Rafael’s presence is limited.  

“You look like you’re in pain.”

Sonny jumps only a little, startled back to the present with the sound of Rafael’s voice a few feet away.  It was the sound he’d been hoping for all along and still it surprises him.  Rafael is walking across the dance floor, where they had just won their first place trophy, and he’s changed now into something more casual.  Dark slacks and a pale button up that still manages to highlight biceps Sonny wants to wrap his fingers around.  He spends a good couple of seconds staring at them only to look up and find Rafael grinning at him as though he’d known exactly what Sonny was thinking.

“Not in pain,” Sonny clarifies, even if it’s not far off.  “Just thinking.”

“About?”

“About what I’m gonna do with my nights now that I won’t be feeding the two of you anymore,” he replies and it’s mostly the truth.  He grins and adds, “I’ve been so wrapped up with this that I’m not sure what’s left of the rest of my life.”

Rafael scoffs as he sets his bag on the chair next to Sonny.  “I’m sure you’ll find other workaholics to force your food on.  Maybe you can make it a charity - bringing food to people who refuse to leave their offices for sustenance.”

He snorts.

“I bet I could make a killing, except for the fact that the concept already exists.  It’s called ‘delivery’, I think,” he observes and delights in the grudging smile and nod he wins from Rafael’s expressive face.  “So, how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” Rafael asks in return, eyes pinched at the corners.

“Saying goodbye to all this,” Sonny elaborated, waving at the gleaming wood floor behind them.  “This has been a good chunk of your life, hasn’t it?  Spent in front of judges, worrying about where to put your feet and second-guessing yourself when you don’t do as well.”

Rafael nods, exhaling loudly.

“I don’t know yet, honestly,” he says and Sonny understands, “But I’m happy with what I’ve done here, if that means anything.  I know Amanda is.  We’re both happy and that seems like a good time to go.”

Sonny hums his agreement and fixes Rafael with a tender smile.  

“It was great, for what it’s worth.  You know, coming from me.”

“What was?”

“You,” Sonny answers honestly.  “You were amazing, you both were.  It, uh.  It floors me that people can even move the way you do.  Being here for it felt kind of special.  It was an honor to see your last dance.”

“This isn’t my last dance.”

Sonny tilts his head, surprised.  Had he changed his mind about retiring after all?  He hardly had the time to consider the implications before Rafael was holding his hand out. 

Oh.

_ Oh _ . 

Sonny took it, allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.  He stepped forward as Rafael stepped backwards, leading him onto the gleaming dance floor where an hour before Rafael had rendered the room speechless.  The room was empty now, save for the two of them.  The only lights were the floodlights left on overnight and the tango had long faded from the air.  Not it was only their footsteps as Rafael takes him to the center of the floor, uses his wide hand to pull Sonny into the circle of his arms.  He feels Rafael’s hand at the small of his back, reveling in the warmth of it through his shirt as they take the first slow step together.

“Nothing fancy, alright?” Sonny warns him.  “I’m not Amanda, I’m just gonna fall and break something.”

Rafael scoffs and places a foot between Sonny’s as they move, using the momentum of their steps to turn them both in a quick circle that Sonny doesn’t even realized has happened until he’s facing the opposite direction and Rafael is looking at him with open desire on his face.  

“Wow.”

His voice is low when Rafael replies, “Absolutely.”

Sonny lets Rafael lead him around the floor, lets their breathing start to match.  He’s tempted to fill the silence created between their steps but suddenly the speakers crackle to life again and he sees a blonde head working behind the soundbooth, stumbling around and cursing while Rafael mutters under his breath about being able to do a single thing without turning it into an argument with an inanimate object.  Sonny’s tempted to laugh, tempted to tease, but then the music starts and every snarky word gets ground into dust as his breath catches in his chest.

 

_ Wise men say only fools rush in... _

 

Elvis Presley’s voice is low and clear over the speakers and for a moment Sonny can’t breathe or even think because it’s all too much.  The music, the dance.  The man in his arms, smiling softly and guiding them as Sonny’s steps falter.

“I asked for a song recommendation from Amanda,” Rafael confesses under his breath.  “She said this song was special to you.”

Sonny nods, laughing breathlessly.  “My parents danced to this song at their wedding and at every anniversary for forty years.  I think Amanda was setting you up to be dancing with a sobbing mess.”

“You’re not sobbing.”

“Only because I’m clinging to what dignity I have left,” he counters and Rafael only pulls him closer, spins them again.  

It’s easy for him to forget that Amanda is nearby with Rafael’s eyes green in the dim lights and his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.  It’s even easier for him to do when he feels the soft glance of lips over his throat, the hot flow of Rafael’s breath across his ear as they move.  Sonny waits until he can’t anymore, until it feels like he won’t take in another breath until he takes it from Rafael’s lips.  Rafael's eyes meet his and there's something careful, almost cautious in the deep green so close to Sonny's own that he can see the flecks of hazel. It takes Sonny a moment to place it, to realize that for perhaps the first time ever, Rafael is waiting for him to take the lead.   
  
So he does.

He stops them in the middle of a turn, cups his hand around the back of Rafael’s neck and pulls him closer.  Their mouths fit together and that feeling of vindication comes back as Rafael parts his lips to let Sonny in.  He knew it would be like this, he insists to himself as he takes his first taste of the man he’s wanted for months.  Like all of his life has led up to this, like the rest of the world has frozen in time to let him have this moment.  The two of them on the dance floor, this song in the air between them as Sonny captures Rafael’s lower lip between his own.  He’s always known that the two of them were inevitable, had always known they would fit together.

Perfect, Sonny marvels.

He’s always known it would be perfect.

 

_ Take my hand.  Take my whole life, too.  For I can’t help falling in love with you... _

 

“I’m happy I met you, Sonny,” Rafael whispers as the song comes to a close and their first kiss ends.

The first of many.

“Yeah,” Sonny replies.  “Me too.”


	12. Star Crossed Lovers AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by an anon, helped along by Robin Hood who insists on giving me great ideas when my own shitty ones would suffice.

“You know I don’t believe in this, Sonny.”

“Don’t believe in what?  The stars?”

Rafael rolled his eyes.

Hard.

It’s possible he may have pulled something.

“Just because you spent your afternoon interviewing a psychic doesn’t mean you’re suddenly cued into the cosmos,” he shot back, shaking his head.  “And besides, you’ve already talked to her.  What difference will talking to both of us make?”

“You’re not curious?” Sonny asked excitedly.  “I mean, come on.  A real life psychic told me to bring my boyfriend in before the witching hour for a glimpse at our future.  She knew about us!”

“No, she knew you were dating a man.  Which probably wasn’t as difficult to decipher as you imagine, considering the way you walk.”

Sonny whips around.

“ _ Excuse me _ ?”

“You treat any distance longer than six feet like a catwalk, Sonny.  She’d have to be headless not to have her suspicions.”

“Whatever, I’m not starting this fight because you’re just trying to distract me.  Come on, this is the place.”

Sonny led them into a small storefront that frankly, Rafael would have been able to design himself using only the vague cues he had from gypsies in movies.  A sentiment he belatedly realized was probably racist as he stepped through the beaded curtain and was slapped in the face with the smell of intermingling rose and patchouli.  The decor was just as he’d expected - fading silver outlines of celestial bodies on dusty black velvet, artistic renditions of the Tarot hung on the walls.  Stevie Nicks and Jefferson Airplane looked out at him from aging concert posters and he barely had time to suppress his grin before a voice rang out in the silence.

“Detective Carisi!  You’re here.”

“Hey, Estela.  Yeah, I had to,” Sonny replied, affable as always.  Rafael had lost track now of the number of elderly people who had melted under his easy demeanor.  “Estela, this is my partner - Rafael.”

The woman herself seemed nice enough - aging, white haired with shocks of black threaded throughout.  

“Rafael!” she cried, pleased as she shook his hand.  “Your detective has such strong feelings about you, I feel like I know you already.  Please, sit with me.”

It was the last nice thing the woman had to say. 

Not that she was rude.

It was just that the two of them were fundamentally incompatible, as it turned out.  As a Pisces, Sonny was a romantic dreamer who at his best was a living, breathing, fairytale prince and at his worse was an inconstant, indecisive flake who would chase after the next individual to catch his eye as soon as he felt neglected in any way.  Of course, none of that took into account the fact that Sonny Carisi was as monogamous as the day is long, or that he would sooner gnaw off a limb than cheat or be the other man.  

A fact that Rafael felt comfortable keeping to himself when Estela started in on him.  The loud, overconfident Leo who preens under attention and enjoys the melodrama.  Rafael was doomed to forever alienate his precious Sonny, who would only ever need emotional care that Rafael would never be able to provide.  He would demand fawning that Sonny wouldn’t be able to give, would require grand romantic gestures instead of the lovesick mooning Sonny would give in every spare moment.  

_ Fatally incompatible _ , Estela had said with a sad smile.  

Doomed to fail.

His mood turned dark after half an hour and Sonny was quick to sweep him out the door then, tuned in as always with how Rafael was thinking and feeling.   _ Always the Pisces _ , Rafael thought bitterly as they stepped back out of the shop and into the bitterly cold drizzle of late fall.  The two of them didn’t say much as Rafael hailed a cab and Sonny held the door for him to get in before shutting it and jogging around the side of the car.  It wasn’t until they were both buckled in and the driver had taken their address that Sonny spoke, amusement in his tone.

“Why didn’t you correct her?”

Rafael turned, surprised.  

“Correct her about what?  Her chosen career path?  Because I doubt that was something she wanted to hear.”

“You let her believe you were a Leo,” Sonny told him knowingly, grinning as the cab merged into traffic.  “Don’t get me wrong, the ego and the flare for the dramatic is spot-on.  But your birthday is in late October - you’re a Scorpio.”  

“Am I?” he replied blandly, looking out the window.  

“Yeah.  You’re too calm and cool to be a Leo.  You get off on being the mysterious one in the room, not the center of attention.”  

Rafael scoffed.  “Oh, good.  Now you’re an expert.  Thinking of another career change already?  You haven’t even given that law degree a spin around the block.”

“Now see, she was right about me being a Pisces though.  I’m dreamy and intuitive,” he continued, as though Rafael hadn’t even spoken.  “Which, if you really were a Leo, would be a bad thing.  Leos are loud and harsh and can’t take care of my sensitive emotional needs.”

“Are you even listening to yourself right now?”

“But see, I know for a fact that you’re a Scorpio.  And I know that _ you  _ know that, because there’s no way you’ve gone through almost fifty years of life without knowing what your sign is,” Sonny deduced and he only barely avoids the desire to flinch against the mention of his age.  “Which means that you didn’t care what she thought enough to correct her, because you were pretty sure of us already.”

At this Rafael does look away from the window, small smirk in place.  

Sonny may be too smart for his own good.

“You seem confident in yourself,” he mocked gently, only because Sonny wouldn’t know what to do with outright praise.  

“I am.  Because I’m pretty sure of us too,” Sonny replied and reached for Rafael’s hand.  “I also did some googling after the first time I saw her, which is how I happen to know that we are -  _ in fact  _ \- astrological soulmates.”  

“You’re ridiculous.”

“No, it’s true.  The most compatible two people could ever be.  What with our wits and moods and active fantasy life,” he said suggestively, waggling his eyebrows in a way that Rafael both loves and hates.  “The sex is off the charts, by the way.  If ever the moody, animalistic Scorpio can find it in him to not be so rough with me anyway.”

He arched a single brow.  

“Is that a complaint?”

Sonny grinned.

“Not even close,” he amended and gripped Rafael’s hand tighter.  “It’s just… this was supposed to go a little differently.  She was supposed to know you were a Scorpio, because she’s psychic-”

“Psychics aren’t real.”

“- and then  _ she  _ was supposed to give you the soulmate speech.  That way when I asked you to marry me it would be in the middle of a ‘true love’s kiss’ kind of moment rather than me and you arguing about astrology in the back of a cab.”

Rafael’s head jerked up.

“What did you say?”

“I said I want you to marry me, Raf.  And don’t act so surprised, like you didn’t know a good Catholic boy wouldn’t want to put a ring on it eventually.”

He wanted to scoff, to make some snide comment about his being a far cry short of a blushing bride, but it wasn’t there.  He kept looking for sarcasm and came up empty.  The only thing he could find with those desperately questing fingers was something approximating joy - a feeling that threatened to overwhelm him as they rode in silence, save for the road noise of the cars around them.

“Well?” Sonny finally asked, nerves getting the better of him.  “Are we tying the knot or am I packing my stuff?”

“I’m in charge of the wedding and everything it entails,” Rafael found himself saying.  “You couldn’t coordinate colors to save your life and I refuse to serve beer.”

“I can coordinate colors.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yeah, alright fine.  My proud Leo just needs to be in charge, doesn’t he?”

Rafael rolled his eyes again.

Hard.

He’d definitely pulled something because there was an odd burning behind his eyelids.  

“Shut up and kiss me before I change my mind.”  


	13. Pray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rafael doesn't believe in God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday present for the marvelous booyahkendell. <3

The mood is somber at best, downright depressed at worst.

It was another rough case in a string of them, this one culminating in a loss.  An unexpected one.  They had all been celebrating a slam dunk with the jury returned their not guilty verdict.  Numb from shock, they’d all retreated to a bar.  Mostly to sit in silence, as none of them had managed to find any words yet.  Every time one of them started the sentence would just trail off… never to be picked up again.  Carisi tries more than any of them but even he’s been rendered mute.

Rafael is miserable.

Not just now, in this moment.  Although that’s certainly true too.  He’s miserable regularly now.  It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does.

Never in his life has Rafael ever planned on happiness.  

Growing up poor in the Bronx with a belligerent asshole for a father didn’t lead him to experience many Kodak moments in his childhood, no matter how hard his abuelita and his mother tried.  And they succeeded sometimes.  But he’d grown up an asshole, too.  A mouthy one who clung to his intelligence as his sole means of achieving superiority.  He’d aced everything he’d ever touched, gone to Harvard, and aced his way through law school.  Only ever getting cockier, only ever putting more walls up because he had a reputation to maintain.  A reputation that means nothing now, the taste of failure so strong on his tongue that he has to drown it with scotch. 

He thought it wouldn’t matter.

The thrill of winning would sustain him forever, he was sure.  Because that was the closest to absolute happiness he’d ever been and the closest he’d ever wanted to be.  But then he’d transferred to Manhattan and fallen in with SVU and he’d… fit.  Inexplicably.  And it was hard not to care here.  Hard to just care about wins and not the faces you were representing.  It was a transformation that had occurred before he’d even realized it was happening.  In Brooklyn he was Rafael Barba, the insufferably arrogant ADA with a conviction rate worthy of envy.  In Manhattan he was Rafael Barba, the man who was almost always willing to fight.  It was hard not to take some pride in that, even knowing that failure was inevitable.

Harder when Olivia Benson was the ultimate victim’s advocate, forcing him to take cases he ordinarily wouldn’t until it was a habit.  Until he took them all, unwinnable or not.  Rafael had found a kindred spirit in her - a woman dedicated to the job, who took her happiness from her successes there.

But Liv was happy now and it had nothing to do with work.

He didn’t know who it was, knew she’d keep it close to the chest until she couldn’t anymore, but he knew she had someone.  She was smiling more, was leaving early when able.  She looked younger, looked like the persistent weight on her shoulders was fading.  And if Rafael’s kindred spirit was no longer able to find her joy solely from work, how was he supposed to?

What happens when the job can’t sustain him anymore?

It’s that question he’s pondering when Fin stands up and pays his tab, saying he’s got an early morning.  With his son and son-in-law, playing grandpa with the new baby.  They all wish him well and Olivia is next, smiling down at her phone screen before putting it away and saying she has to go.  Not offering a reason, just another smile as she finishes the rest of her wine and heads for the door.  She spares Rafael a touch on the shoulder as she passes and they’ve been friends long enough now that he’s able to decipher her intention instantly.

_ You did good. _

_ You did the right thing. _

_ This wasn’t your fault. _

He can’t bring himself to smile back but does accept the touch for what it is and wishes her a good night, hoping whoever she’s going back to is able to take the crushing weight of today off her shoulders.  

“Yeah, I guess that means I should go too,” Rollins says, sliding from the stool.  “Jessie’s babysitter is due to leave in half an hour.  At least this way I’ll be there for bedtime.”

“Here, let me split a cab with you,” Carisi says, downing the rest of his beer.  “It’s getting late.  You never know who’s prowling around in front of your building.”

She scoffs.

“Do I look like I need an escort, Carisi?”

“Nah.  But watch me do it anyway.”

Carisi pays for both their drinks and in the meantime Rollins is studying Rafael.  He hasn’t the slightest idea what she sees but she looks wary, pulling her coat around her shoulders with traces of concern pinching the corners of her mouth.  For a moment it looks like she wants to say something but then the impulse is gone because her babysitter is texting her with a picture of the baby in her pajamas and the rest of the world is burned away.  Her face lights up, her smile is wide, and then she’s pressuring Carisi to hurry up so they can get out of there.  

“You gonna be alright, counselor?” Carisi asks and Rafael briefly considers telling him the truth.

_ Probably not.   _

“I’m fine, Carisi.”

The man frowns and tries again.  “Care to come with?  I’m sure we can all fit into the backseat of a cab.”

Rafael grimaces.  

“No thank you.”

“Carisi, leave him alone.  He’s can get himself home.  Right, Barba?”  He nods and Rollins seems vindicated.  “See?  All good.  Let’s go.”  

He mumbles some generic farewell and then the two of them are out the door and he’s alone.  

Well, not entirely alone.  

Alone with his thoughts, which is probably a worse idea that being actually alone.  

His thoughts are traitors these days, reminding him of his failures rather than his victories.  Personal and professional.  He thinks of earlier that afternoon, when their murder victim’s father had heard the words that would set his son’s killer free.  He’d looked to Rafael in abject horror, because really it would always be Rafael’s face he attributed with this betrayal.  The cops did the best they could, they caught his son’s killer, but Rafael was the one who failed to make it stick.  He briefly wondered if he would get death threats in letters from him, too, but decided he might deserve them.  

His third scotch disappears before he realizes what’s happened and his face is warm, his blood heavy and sluggish.  The bartender is eyeing him like he’s considering cutting him off and so he orders a fourth before the man can make up his mind.  This one he sips, just because he truly doesn’t want to get so drunk that he’s unable to get home.  That, he supposes, is at least some indication that he’s not so far gone that he’s faded into the nihilistic headspace that finds him before the blackouts.

Rafael is miserable, but he doesn’t want to be.

He doesn’t want to be happy.

He doesn’t want to magically wake up and smile and feel fulfilled.

He just… wants to feel something other than this.  Other than the certainty of his own worthlessness, the crushing weight of his defeats.  He wants to feel something other than numb and tired and alone.

Rafael doesn’t believe in God.

He swears he doesn’t, but he’s drunk and it’s been an awful month - close to an awful year - and it just slips out.  

It’s nothing formal, nothing like the prayers his family said over meals as a child.  He’s not even entirely sure what words flit through his mind but he does realize the thoughts were meant for someone other than himself and so it counted, he supposed.  It was a weak moment, one of a growing many, and he’d beat himself up about it tomorrow.  Tomorrow, when he sobered up and remembered the ridiculous notion that he was hoping for something other than misery.  

“Hey, counselor.”

Rafael turns, surprised.  Carisi is next to him again, coat buttoned up and face flushed red with cold.  

“Detective?” he questions and is instantly embarrassed by the slurring of the word.  “Didn’t you take Detective Rollins home?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, face pinched.  “Almost an hour ago.”

He would have sworn it had been ten minutes.

“Decide you weren’t done?” he questioned as Carisi leaned his hip on the bar next to him and looked down.  

He was so close.

Why did Carisi always stand so close?

And why did Rafael never move away?

“Nah, I’m done for the night.  You are too, I think.”

Rafael scoffs.  “How very presumptuous of you, detective.”  

“I’m not presuming anything.  I’m hoping.”

“Hoping what?”

“Hoping you’ll let me take you home,” he says meaningfully and Rafael looks up at him.  His jaw set, his eyes direct.  Carisi was serious.  “It’s been a long week, counselor.  A really shitty day.  Let me make sure you get home safe.”

“I’m almost certain that won’t do anything to change the way today ended.”

“No, it won’t,” Carisi admits on a sigh, “But it’s something and the small things matter, too.”

Rafael doesn’t believe in God.

“Fine,” he hears himself say and takes one last drink from his glass before leaving it half empty on the bar.  He settles his tab and lets Carisi walk him out.  Lets him catch a cab, lets him open the door for Rafael as he climbs in.  

His pride should probably be rioting, he thinks as Carisi nudges him to give his address to the driver.  He should be annoyed and blustering and insulted at the knowledge that a young cop feels the need to walk him to his door because he’s worried Rafael can’t hold his drink.  

He doesn’t.

He feels… comforted.

“How did you know to come back, Carisi?”

The man doesn’t even blink, doesn’t look away from Rafael for even a second in the dark backseat, even if it would be easier for him to shy away from it.

“Felt like I needed to,” he answers softly.  “Got a feeling, couldn’t shake it.  Wouldn’t leave me alone until I came back for you.”

Rafael doesn’t believe in God.

Carisi does.

“Thank you,” he says and is surprised to find he means it.  

“Anytime, Rafael.”

The sound of his name on Carisi’s lips hits him hard, harder than his father’s fists or his own defeats ever did.  It sucks the breath from him and for moment his head is clearer, his heart beating for another reason than because it has no choice.  His heart is beating because maybe Carisi was meant to be here, in this cab with him.  Maybe Rafael was meant to be here too.

His head tilts forward of its own volition, lips brushing softly over Carisi’s.  

A glance.

A touch.

A taste.  

Just a hint of promise before it’s gone, Carisi pulling back slowly.  His eyes are still closed, his mouth still slightly parted.  It’s a sight Rafael intends to memorize and replay for the rest of his life.  The sight of Carisi living in their kiss a little longer, refusing to let it go.  

Rafael doesn’t believe in God.

“Come home with me.”

This pops Carisi’s eyes open in an instant and Rafael is pleased to find no confusion, no denial on his lips.  

“You’re drunk,” he argues but looks weak.  

“Not drunk enough for this to be a mistake,” Rafael says.  “Come with me.  Don’t pretend we both haven’t been thinking of this for years.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you like that,” Carisi assures him and his eyes dart back down to Rafael’s lips as the cab pulls to a stop in front of Rafael’s building.  “But… but it’s been a hard day, and you’ve been drinking.”

“So?” Rafael asks.  “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying call me tomorrow,” Carisi responds and his voice sounds rough, his accent thicker.  “Call me sober, call me hungover.  I don’t care.  Just… just call me again and I’ll be here.”

“For sex?” he asks, mouth quirking up.  

“For anything.”

Carisi means it.

Rafael could call him tomorrow morning for a bloody mary and Carisi would show up with every ingredient, eager to get in the door.

“Okay,” he says slowly, handing over his fare to the driver.  “I’ll call you.”

“Please do,” Carisi implores him, one long hand on his thigh.  “Take care of yourself, counselor.  I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Rafael nods, gives a half smile as he gets out of the cab and shuts the door behind him.  He walks around the back of the cab and offers a parting wave that Carisi returns, mouth turned down in worry as the car drives off into the night.  He was certain in that moment that he would call Carisi the next morning, maybe not immediately upon waking but at least before noon.  He can’t shake the feeling of  _ right  _ that’s hanging over him as he walks in the door, boards the elevator.  Mostly he doesn’t want to.

Rafael doesn’t believe in God.

Maybe he should.   
  



	14. Horrible Pickup Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet, prompted by my friend deimoslunaa on Tumblr.

Sonny sidles up close, hip cocked to the side to rest against the bar.  Rafael watches him warily, taking a sip of his scotch and trying not to lean into him.  

“Hey.  Come here often?”

“At least every week,” he plays along, mouth quirking up into the semblance of a smirk.  

“Is your name Google?  Because you’re the answer to everything I’ve been searching for,” Sonny tries again and Rafael barks out a laugh, shaking his head.  

“That’s awful.  Even for you.”

Sonny scoots closer.  An inch or two, just enough to make Rafael anticipate his touch even as it’s withheld from him.  

“Are you religious?” Sonny asks, lowering his voice into a stage whisper.  “Because I think you’re the answer to all my prayers.”

Rafael groans, cringing until his toes curled in his shoes.

“You realize we’re married, right?  This is completely unnecessary.”

Sonny steps even closer, directly into Rafael’s personal space.  Close enough for him to feel the heat of Sonny’s tall body towering over him.  He leans in and Rafael thinks he’s going for a kiss but suddenly Sonny’s full lips are at his ear instead, blunt teeth dragging over the tender skin of his earlobe.  Rafael shivers under his attention and curses himself for being so easy.  

“If it’s true that we are what we eat,” Sonny starts in a lascivious whisper, voice low and rough in a way that shoots like a current under Rafael’s skin, “I could be you by morning.”

And just like that, Rafael breaks.

“We’re going home,” he says, knocking back his scotch in a single gulp that would have insulted him had anyone else done it.  Sonny only grins at him, his handsome face the picture of mock innocence.   

“What’s the rush, counselor?  Was it something I said?”

Rafael steals a kiss - hard and quick, gone in a flash.  

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, detective.”

Sonny’s eyes are practically jubilant, sparkling in amusement.

“Oh, I think we both know that’s a promise I’m happy to keep.”

God knew it was true.

“Move,” Rafael growls.  “If we’re not home in twenty minutes I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

Sonny follows him out the door, smirking even as he reaches for Rafael’s hand. 


	15. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia notices more than Rafael gives her credit for - and finally says something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An angsty sort-of-episode-tag that I thought of at work today. Sorry. :(

Rafael really should be at home.

The file in front of him could be dissected in his apartment, from the comfort of his deep couch or even from bed.  Notes could be made in sweatpants and a worn t-shirt rather than his three-piece suit.  Work could be done even over the top of his reading glasses, a thought that occurs to him as a dull headache throbs between his brows.  There was no reason he couldn’t be home other than his own stubbornness.  

That, and the budding desire to keep work away from home.

An impulse he hasn’t had the courage to face just yet.

And one that he avoids yet another night with the sound of a knock at his door.  The quick, rhythmic knock that signaled either Olivia or Carmen and he had sent Carmen home three hours before.  

“Come in.”

Olivia walks through the door and the sight is a welcome one.  At least for a second, until Rafael’s eyes rest on the smaller body she’s carrying past his door.  Noah, in a thick hooded jacket with a candy bar in one hand and a small tablet in another.  He offers a strained smile at the child’s animated wave and he watches Olivia settle him onto Rafael’s couch.  The nice leather one.  The nice leather one he doesn’t want to spend half an hour cleaning chocolate out of.

“Liv-”

A look is all it takes.  A look that tells him in no uncertain terms,  _ Live with it Rafael. _

“Here you go, sweetie.  Watch your show while Mr. Barba and I talk, okay?” she asks nicely and the child nods, attention back on the animated video almost as soon as she’s done talking.  

“I seem to remember a lot of high rhetoric about screen time a few years ago,” he teases and Olivia scoffs in return.

“Sugar, too.  Every parent is that parent until you need them to be still and quiet for more than five minutes.”  He laughs and sets down his pen, leaning back in the chair while Olivia squares her shoulders and adds, “Sorry, Lucy met me at the precinct and I thought we could stop here on our way home.  I was hoping we could talk, if you have a minute.”

“Of course.  Although somehow I feel like this talk is already not in my favor.”

“I’m not here to attack you.”

“And thank God for that.”  He nods at Noah behind her.  “You already have backup.”

That wins him a smile, however brief.

“I came to talk to you about yesterday, in my office.”

Rafael cocks his head.  “Yesterday?”

“When we were discussing what to do about Evelyn, Nora, and Julie.”

“And we decided to go through with Carisi’s suggestion.”

“You did.  Without a fight, even,” she points out and his stomach gives a slight flip because he hadn't considered his agreement to seem out of the ordinary.  “I’m glad to see you’re getting along again.”

“We never stopped.”

She arches an eyebrow in his direction.  “I’m almost certain the last year would beg to differ.”

Olivia's not wrong.

The last year had been ugly.  Worse than ugly, if he was being honest with himself.  And that was only what managed to spill over into their working lives - it didn't count the phone calls, the texts.  The tense nights returning keys and collecting personal items from dressers.

“We’ve had…” he starts, grapples for a word that doesn’t sound too intimate.  “Disagreements.”

She laughs incredulously at the word.

“No, you’ve had sparring matches.  Carisi had a temper that I’ve never seen from him, but only with you.  I didn’t see him lash out at anyone else during that time,” she observes, all too accurately.  "A temper that's all but disappeared now, in just a few short weeks.  He's back to smiling at you, back to seeking your approval.  Hell, he's even gotten confident enough to call you by name rather than by title."

He stiffens, headache worsening as he realizes what's happening.

“Liv-”

“Don’t hurt him again, Rafael.”

He blinks, stunned.  

Olivia doesn’t so much as bat an eye, holding his gaze evenly while the sound of Noah’s cartoon in the background detracts from the otherwise deafening silence between them. 

“I don’t recall disclosing a relationship to my superiors,” he says coolly, “And I’m almost certain Carisi wouldn’t, either.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Do you think I’m blind?  Or just willfully ignorant?” she asks, exasperated even after less than five minutes in the room with him.  “I don’t know when or how, but I know that it happened.  I even think you made him happy, that much was obvious.  Even after Mike’s death, he was okay.  Until he wasn’t.”

“And you think that has to do with me?”

“I know it does.  Just like I know that it must be fading, because here you are again.  Flirting, sending those same long looks over my desk like you’re the only ones who can see them,” she sighs.  “And maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.  So I’m here to ask you again - please, please don’t hurt him.  Whatever else happens, whatever you decide.  Just don't crush him in the process.”

Rafael clears his throat, feels the knot there and does his best to talk around it.  

“I never… this wasn’t supposed to happen.  It wasn’t intentional.”

She scoffs, “Now that I believe.”'

Rafael shakes his head bitterly, tries to reign in the acid in his tone.

“I’m just trying to tell you that it wasn’t the plan.  This wasn’t supposed to develop into… feelings.  What it became, and even how it ended.  I never meant to hurt Sonny.”

That much was painfully true, at least.

“Uncle Sonny?!” Noah cried from behind them, happy to have heard a name he recognizes.  

“That’s right, baby.  We’re talking about Uncle Sonny.”

“He gives me cookies when you aren’t looking.”

Rafael chuckles.  That sounds like something the man would do.

“Does he?  Well, I’ll have to start using the eyes on the back of my head then,” Olivia says and shakes her head, looking back at Rafael with softness across her features.  “He’s smitten with Uncle Sonny.  We all are, I think.”

_ We are _ , he thinks but can’t bring himself to say it.  

Next to his arm his phone vibrates and his eyes dart to the screen, seeing a familiar name flash across it.  He thumbs the message open in less than a second, without even thinking about it.  The message is short and simple and still Rafael can hear Sonny’s voice in it.  The accent, the warmth.  He can even picture Sonny’s smirk as he typed out the words, plans already forming in his mind as the message sends.

 

**_You free tonight?_ **

 

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Olivia asks quietly.

He nods briefly and puts the phone away, forgoing a response until he could form it alone.  

“I can tell.  You light up near him, Rafael.  Like I haven’t seen you do in years,” she tells him and before he can answer she’s stepped away, collected Noah from his spot on the couch.  To his surprise there’s not a dollop of chocolate on his seat from what he can tell.  Olivia heads for the door and turns back at the last minute, offering him a small smile.  “I hope… I hope you know what you’re doing.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a defense.

“Have a nice night, Olivia.”

“Bye, Mr. Barba!” Noah cries as she leaves and then the door is closed behind them, the sound of the heels of Olivia’s boots fading down the hallway until he’s left with ringing silence and the unpleasant skitter of his own unease.  

He looks down again, at the paperwork he hasn’t managed to make any headway on in close to two hours.  Then at his phone, flipping it over again to see Sonny’s message.

Rafael stares at it, the ghost of a smile forming.  

It’s so easy to smile around Sonny.

Then Noah’s earnest face floats to the forefront of his mind again, chocolate smeared at the corner of his mouth while he excitedly asks about Uncle Sonny.  Noah, the child of a coworker who somehow Sonny had managed to bewitch into loving him.  Like everyone else, Rafael mourns and feels a familiar chasm open up in the center of his chest.

Those old fights are still there, he realizes, as every one of them wells to the surface again.  

Always there, always haunting him.  

They haven't gone away, not really.  Not the big ones.  Rafael had only forgotten how those old fights made him feel in the year and a half since their last one-sided shouting match around two in the morning - frustrated, angry.  Grieving for a man who refused to leave him in the hopes he could persuade Rafael to want the same kind of family he did.  A fight Sonny could never, ever hope to win because Rafael was fifteen years past persuading.  

Rafael looks at the message again, picturing Sonny’s smiling face even has he hears the remnants of Olivia’s heartfelt warning in his ears.

He looks at the message, takes a deep breath.

Heart panging in his chest, he deletes it.


	16. Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode tag for 19x05, "Complicated". Spoilers ahead.

There are days that Sonny wonders if he can keep doing this.

They were few and far between for a long time and suddenly here they are again.  He knows this one will pass, just like the others.  In a few days he’ll get the smell of damp earth from his nose, the feel of a worn yarn blanket will fade from his fingertips.  But until then… until then he’ll sit here on his couch, numb and oddly disconnected, wondering how long he’ll accept penance and live with the baggage of sins that weren’t his own to carry.

A question that will have to wait for another night as a knock interrupts his thoughts.  His phone was turned off earlier in the night after turning down Forlini’s with the rest of the squad and he didn’t turn it on now, knowing already from the brusque staccato who was standing on the other side of the door.

Rafael.

Curt on a good day, downright rude on others, and still the best thing in Sonny’s life.  If work was penance, Rafael was surely his reprieve.  Rafael with eyes that softened at the sound of Sonny’s voice, a solid body devoid of armor so long as it was Sonny touching it.  For a moment it’s Rafael’s skin he can feel on his fingertips but the moment passes as he stands up from the couch and the soft crunch of foliage echoes in his ears again as he walks.

He’s not in that forest anymore.

“Hey,” he says softly, opening his door to let Rafael inside and locking it behind him again.  “Come in.  Sorry I didn’t take everyone up on that drink, I kind of just felt like crashing out.”

“It’s fine,” the man replied but Sonny was aware of an anxious energy sparking under the surface.  “Rollins texted me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She told me what you did.”

Sonny cocks his head to the side, the sensation making his vision spin for a second.  The numbness has crawled up his neck now, into his arms.  His fingers are tingling.

“What did I do?”

“You found her,” Rafael says and elaborates, “Emma.  You found Emma.  You-”

Rafael gasps for breath and for the first time Sonny can see a wet sheen in his eyes.

“You carried her out of there,” he finally continues and he sounds breathless.  The numbness is typically intoxicating to Sonny on days like these but today he wants to swim through it, to feel again.  

Because Rafael’s voice shouldn’t sound like that.  

Sonny shouldn’t be letting him feel like that.

“I know,” he says and his voice sounds distant.

Leaves crunching.

Dirt.

That blanket, the rough pills abrasive on his skin with the weight of her in his arms.

“Why?”

Sonny wanders back to the present.

“Why what, Raf?”

“Why do you always do this to yourself?” Rafael demanded, running his fingers through his dark hair.  Sonny feels apart from it all, strangely floating just outside the cradle of his skull.  It makes watching Rafael agonize feel oddly endearing.  “Why is it always you?  Why is it you that takes the risks, that takes the pain for everyone else?  Why you, Sonny?”

Sonny watches him pace, watches him press the heel of his hands into his eyes.

The forest floor was so sunny.

“Why did it have to be you?” Rafael asks, voice trembling.  

Sonny smiles, even if he can feel that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Because she needed me.”

He gasps and it sounds like a sob.

Emma weighed less than he expected, hardly a weight at all.

She was cool to the touch.

The smell of soil floods his nose.

“Emma needed me just then,” he explains patiently, voice soft, even as Rafael looks stricken.  “She’s a little girl.  Not a weapon, not a crime scene.  Not a piece of evidence.  Barely more than a baby.  She deserved to be carried, Rafi.  Not transported.”

A broken half laugh punches out of Rafael and Sonny knows that it’s because he doesn’t want to cry.  Now is when Sonny expects him to leave.  No matter how much he wants Sonny, no matter how much he cares for him, there is only so much Rafael can handle before he closes himself off to it because he can’t take anymore.  Sonny is floating and Rafael is leaving and-

Rafael is storming across the room, taking Sonny’s face in his hands.

He wishes he could feel it.

“She deserved _you_ , Sonny,” Rafael gasps against his lips, keeping Sonny close.  “She deserved you today and I’m happy she had you.”

“Thank you,” he whispers and his eyes are burning.  He’s not floating anymore, not living under the cover of trees drenched in sunlight.  “Thank you, Raf.”

“When you’re ready to come back I’m here,” Rafael tells him and Sonny doesn’t have it in him to be surprised.  It’s been over a year and Rafael knows now.  Knows how he has to pull away for a little while, to make peace.  “I’m always here.  Just… just don’t stay there.  Don’t stay gone.”

He grins.

“And leave you?” he quips, meeting Rafael’s eyes.  “Never.”

Soil.

A handmade blanket.

“Let’s go to bed,” Rafael says and Sonny knows now how off he must seem if Rafael is willing to sleep in his declared inferior bed for the sake of staying close to him.  “Let me stay with you.”

Damp earth, cool on his fingers.

The blanket was candy pink.

Sonny’s jaw resting in Rafael’s palm, long thumb rubbing over the skin.

“Of course,” he says and Rafael presses a light kiss to his lips before pulling away and taking his hand, leading him away.  

Out of the room, out of the dark.  

Out of the hollow nothing he rests in while he waits to find himself again.

Light filters through the leaves behind his eyes.

The blanket scratches on his skin, stiff from a decade as Emma’s shroud.

Rafael squeezes his hand, pulls him closer.

The numbness fades.


	17. Smutty Soulmate AU Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rafael hasn't forgotten the weeks of torture at Sonny's hands - nor is he planning on letting it slide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, lovelies. As promised. From Sonny’s POV this time, set a few months after. Featuring guest writer Robin Hood, who provided the best parts of the dialogue and the plot. I am useless without her. It's dumb how she just keeps giving me gold and letting me take credit for it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

 

Sonny keeps expecting to get used to it.

The sight of Rafael in his apartment, the sight of Rafael in his bed.  The feel of his hands on him, both tangible and intangible.  It was a dream he hadn’t even realized he was having, that day in the courtroom when he imagined pressing his lips lightly behind Rafael’s ear.  It was a stray thought, an absent musing, and then he was watching the man himself reach up to touch the space as though he’d be able to feel Sonny there.  

Then Sonny knew.

Knew they were meant for each other, knew he’d never find anyone he wanted as much as he wanted Rafael Barba.  And God in heaven, how he wanted him.  They’d spent almost every night of their relationship in bed, twisting in sweat-damp sheets and racking up noise complaints.  Sonny regrets now the weeks he’d held himself to imagining rather than reaching out, to fantasizing rather than taking Rafael for himself.  It was all in fear, of course.  Fear of rebuke, fear of rejection.  Fears that would never have come to fruition, he knows now, because Rafael seemed to want him just as much - at least Sonny thinks, his skin prickling with  awareness as he can feel Rafael’s hands drifting over his sides.

Sonny sucks in a quick breath, waits.

Hands on his hips, fingers digging in.

Teeth on his collarbone, scraping skin before sucking the flesh between teeth.  

He's alone.

Sonny has been undercover for two weeks now, trapped in some metropolitan high rise studio apartment because he’s supposed to be the money man for an “adoption” company shipping orphans up from Central America.  It’s the longest they’ve been apart in months and apparently tonight was the night Rafael had run out of patience.  Fifteen minutes after he gives Liv the all clear - he was in the safe house, locked away for the night - he feels hands on his shoulders, lips on his neck.  The soft caress of Rafael’s breath on his skin as he sheds his clothes and crawls into bed.  He expects softness, affection.  Fleeting kisses and invisible hands checking for injuries despite not being able to actually feel them, just because Sonny has discovered what kind of man Rafael Barba was beneath the snark - a caring one.  One who worried.  One who stayed up late for Sonny to get in, just because he couldn’t relax until Sonny was home.

That Rafael Barba isn’t who’s touching Sonny tonight.  

The Rafael with his hands on the inside of Sonny’s thighs is someone else, someone Sonny hasn’t seen since the morning he revealed himself to Rafael as his soulmate.  Breathless and so close to coming Sonny knew he would have been able to finish him off with barely more than an errant thought.  Sonny hadn’t realized until much later how he’d been tormenting the man for weeks.  Bringing him so close, over and over, until his body thrummed and every inch of his skin was touch starved.  He hadn’t realized it until a few hours later, in Rafael’s apartment.  In his bed.  Rafael’s voice a vicious whisper in his ear, promising retribution until Sonny levered his hips up and Rafael came with his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of Sonny’s ear.  

This is what Rafael meant, Sonny realizes as he feels a long finger dragging down the crease of his left thigh.  

This is payback.  

Payback he’s not willing to just sit and accept, even as he sheds the last of his clothing and feels the tip of a finger circling the freckle on the inside of his knee.  

He picks up his phone and doesn’t even need to look at the screen to pull up Rafael’s number, situated at the top of his favorites.  He dials without a second thought, swallowing hard as he feels the nip of teeth on the taut muscle of his jaw.

Rafael answers on the third ring.

“Yes, Detective?”

"I called to tell you to knock it off," Sonny says, his voice low.   
  
"No you didn't," Rafael replies and Sonny can hear the smirk in his soulmate’s voice as much as he can feel Rafael’s lips curve into a smile against the side of his neck.   
  
"No, I didn't," Sonny agrees. "I wanted to hear your voice."   
  
The feel of Rafael’s lips disappears and for a moment, Sonny worries he's said too much. But then he feels the man’s hand trace feather-light down his jaw, can feel one large hand cup his cheek while the other pushes him back against the bed.

"Oh yeah?" Rafael asks, his breath ghosting against Sonny’s lips.  “Well, now you’ve heard it.  If that’s all-”

“Raf,” Sonny warns.

“I’m busy.”

“You’re busy driving me out of my damn mind,” Sonny corrects.  

“I don’t know what you mean.  I’m working.”

“Goddamn it, if you don’t-  _Jesus Christ_ ,” he breathes as he feels a solid weight settle onto his thighs, Rafael’s heat evident even without the man himself in the room.  A hand wraps around him, tight and quick and merciless even as his hips bow off the bed.  “ _Fuck, Raf._ ”

“What was that, Detective?” the man asks, voice purposefully coy even as it threatened to turn into a rasp.  “If I don’t what?”

Sonny hums, eyes closing.

“Nothing to say?  I see.”

The hand leaves him.

“No!”

“No what?”

“Don’t stop,” Sonny breathes and his courage is rewarded with Rafael’s hand again, tight at the base and twisting upward.  “Christ, Raf.  Ah, God.  Don’t stop.”

Kisses press into the hollow of his throat.

His head spins, his hips arch upward.

Mouth dry, grip tight on the phone.

“I was thinking today, Carisi,” Rafael starts and Sonny doesn’t miss the change in his name.  It doesn’t fill him with warmth, but it does fill him with anticipation because Sonny is the name he uses when sex turns into something more.  Carisi is the name Rafael uses when he has the upper hand and plans to take advantage of it.  

“Oh yeah?” Sonny asks, swallowing hard.  “What about?”

“I’m not happy with the power dynamic in this relationship.”

Sonny barks a laugh, just because he can’t help it.

He’s naked and keyed up, totally at his soulmate’s mercy, and Rafael is the one unhappy with the balance of power.

“Do tell,” he breathes and barely bites back a groan at the feel of Rafael’s long fingers tightening around him and slowing to a crawl.  

“I spend every waking moment at your mercy.  Because apparently you have nothing better to do than daydream at work while I try and make sense of your illegible scribbles and turn them into something worth presenting to a jury,” Rafael says, although the words lack bite and Sonny can hear the tension in his voice as he feels the man’s tongue lick a long line up his sternum.  

“Not my fault,” Sonny huffs, “Look at you.  Who would blame me?”

Rafael isn’t immune to flattery.

Not by a long shot, Sonny muses as he’s rewarded with several quick jerks upward and the pad of Rafael’s thumb circling in the groove under his head.  He grips the sheets under him and thrusts up into the grasp as though it would do him any good.  Sweat has started to form on his forehead and he can’t keep from biting his lip as he starts his climb.

“Be that as it may,” Rafael continues, “You’ve gotten to have this upper hand for a long time.  Weeks before I even had a clue who you were and had to imagine some faceless man teasing me to distraction.”

He isn’t sure why, but he’s struck by the impulse to apologize.

The part of his brain who knows Rafael realizes it’s already too late.

“I spent weeks without a face, without a body to connect with the hands on my body every night.  I didn’t know who to beg, who to curse.  Who to come for.”  Sonny flashes hot, gasps into the empty room with Rafael’s voice still in his ear.  “But you, Carisi.  You get to not only know who’s doing to you, but you’ve gotten to experience the real thing now.  Months of it.  You get to imagine all this so much clearer than I ever did.”

Rafael removes his hand and Sonny whines, tempted to drop the phone to replace Rafael’s with his own.  The only thing that stops him is the whisper of a breath down the length of his shaft.  Hot, tempting.  A mouth hovering and moving no further, no matter the urgency with his Sonny’s hips cant into empty air.

“Does that seem fair to you, Carisi?” Rafael asks, voice deadly quiet with the slightest hint of gravel to it.  

“No,” Sonny agrees with a gasp as he feels Rafael swallow him down.  “Not- not fair at all.”

“Which means there's only one thing left to do,” Rafael says, pulling off of him and Carisi bites back his whimper.

“What?” he asks, hating how absolutely wrecked he sounds over a man not even in the same room as him, a man probably sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk and smirking around a snifter of scotch.

“Leave the rest to your imagination,” Rafael all but purrs in his ear, his hand giving Sonny’s cock one more lazy stroke before disappearing. Sonny is spinning the words over and over in his mind but it’s several seconds too late before he’s able to piece together their meaning and Rafael has already made his decision.

“Goodnight, Detective.”

“Raf, don't you fucking dare-”

He’s met with silence.

Rafael has already hung up the phone.


	18. BDSM Barisi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Sonny was playing at calm, suppressing his desire to worry because this was what Rafael wanted. He wanted Sonny to be in control, wanted Sonny to hold and keep him. Rafael wanted to surrender himself. To his lover, to sensation. To the way Sonny poured slick, hot and thick, up and down the length of him. It was heaven and hell, the way Sonny gripped him tight and jerked him off - just to the edge and no further, withholding release over and over until Rafael had no choice but surrender himself to that too. To the wild and reckless abandon that had led Sonny to bind him to a chair with the intention of setting him free.
> 
> God, how he needed to be free.
> 
> He’d been close, so close a minute ago - or a lifetime, who could tell now - and now Sonny was bringing him back. 
> 
> Inhale, hold, exhale.
> 
> _Slap. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this prompt from an anon:
> 
> "Can we get some Dom sonny and sub Barba. Rafi wants one night where he relinquished control and it gets racy and smutty."
> 
> I delivered... I hope.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

Inhale, hold, exhale.

_ Slap _ .

Inhale, hold, exhale.

_ Slap. _

Inhale, hold, exh-

“That’s going to leave a mark, maybe,” Sonny told him, dismayed, and never lowered another strike.  His clear eyes were focused on the redness on Rafael’s inner thighs, pale flesh there turned nearly scarlet.  Rafael could feel it, nearly every inch, and Sonny’s expression was even as he turned away.  Ass still perfectly clad in dark slacks, stark white shirt tucked at the waist.  He’d lost his jacket, tie, and waistcoat.  He’d rolled his sleeves up and out of the way, just so they weren’t in danger of being stained with sweat or lube or come.

_ Come. _

God, he wanted to come.

_ Maybe _ , he would have agreed had they not already established that Rafael wasn’t to speak unless spoken to or to issue his safeword.   _ I don’t mind.   _

Sonny would hear him and respond with,  _ I know you don’t, but I do.   _

At least, normally Sonny would have.

Now Sonny was playing at calm, suppressing his desire to worry because this was what Rafael wanted.  He wanted Sonny to be in control, wanted Sonny to hold and keep him.  Rafael wanted to surrender himself.  To his lover, to sensation.  To the way Sonny poured slick, hot and thick, up and down the length of him.  It was heaven and hell, the way Sonny gripped him tight and jerked him off - just to the edge and no further, withholding release over and over until Rafael had no choice but surrender himself to that too.  To the wild and reckless abandon that had led Sonny to bind him to a chair with the intention of setting him free.

God, how he needed to be free.

He’d been close, so close a minute ago - or a lifetime, who could tell now - and now Sonny was bringing him back.  

Inhale, hold, exhale.

_ Slap. _

The blow was softer now, barely more than a tap, but on already sensitized skin it was a whip-crack of lightning over nerve endings already stunned and reeling.  

It drew a gasp from his lungs, a bead of precome from his tip.

Rafael was free.

He was floating somewhere outside himself, outside his head for the first time in so long, and he was  _ free _ .

“Raf, you with me?” Sonny asked him, pulling what was left of his consciousness up from the dense haze filling his skull.  

The soft nylon rope was tight over his thighs, at his ankles.  

His biceps, tight across his chest.  

All of them anchoring him to a chair in their kitchen - immobile.

_ Vulnerable.  _

“Raf?” Sonny asked again, this time a wrinkle of worry appearing on his brow.  “Rafael, answer me.”

_ Yes _ , he thought though he wasn’t sure the word actually left his lips.  

Sonny was standing at the counter, arms crossed over his chest.  There was a chilled glass of rosé next to him, condensation turning the crystal foggy.  It had been there most of the night, the first glass poured as Rafael walked through the door.  They were on the third now.  Every so often Sonny would drink from it, just before kissing him, so Rafael could taste the cool sweetness on Sonny’s lips before slipping under again.  

He took a drink from it now, long fingers gracing the stem as he brought it up to his mouth.

Rafael watched the line of Sonny’s throat work, licked the roof of his dry mouth and imagined having the cold liquid himself, wondering just how much of it he could drink from Sonny’s mouth before his lover -  _ his tormenter, his keeper  _ \- moved away again.

The glass was set back down and suddenly Sonny was close again, knee on the chair in between Rafael’s legs, long fingers resting across the back of his neck.  The nearness, the warmth, made him ache and his dick twitch and he hoped Sonny didn’t notice.  He wasn’t sure he’d live through Sonny moving away again.  

He needed him.

The heat of his body, the intensity in his eyes.

The softness of his fingers over skin set alight.  

“Rafael,” he murmured, searching his eyes for something Rafael wasn’t sure he had.  “Raf, look at me.”

Wasn’t he already?

“Do we need to talk about stopping?” Sonny asked.  Gentle, touch still so gentle.  Fingers sifting through damp hair.  “Just say the word, Rafael, and we can be done.  Just tell me no.”

He meant it, Rafael knew.

It would take a single syllable - a solitary iteration of the word  _ no _ \- and Sonny would have him untied and in his arms in seconds.  He’d kiss every scrap of abraded skin, would whisper love, fervent and unconditional, into Rafael’s hair and the hollow of his throat.  

Rafael didn’t want to say no.  

He was floating, out of his body and free of its tether, and he didn’t want to stop.

Sweat beaded and crawled.

From the nape of his neck and down the column of his spine.

He didn’t want to stop.

“I love you,” he said instead, startled at the hoarseness of his own voice.  “I need you.”

Sonny’s face, ever so slightly flushed with alcohol, went carefully blank as he leaned in further.  Nose to nose, dragging his knee even further between Rafael’s legs.  Nudging it against Rafael’s swollen sac, pressure gentle but insistent, and Rafael’s breath caught.  His eyes threatened to close and they would have, had Sonny not been so close.  Smelling like sweet wine and cologne and sex.  He could feel Sonny pressing on him, warming him, and Sonny was the anchor that kept him where he needed to be.

Mouth parting for a kiss, Rafael watched in a daze as Sonny ducked his chin to take it.  Deep and cool, the taste of him sweet from either the wine or deprivation, and Rafael whimpered into it because he loved Sonny.  He loved him so much it hurt, so much that it was a physical presence deep in his chest.  Loving Sonny had brought him to life again, even if he couldn’t remember now the crawling purgatory that had existed before.

Rafael wanted to tell him that.

Rafael couldn’t, because he was supposed to be quiet unless it was to tell Sonny no.  

He would never tell Sonny no.

Not now, when Sonny was so close and kissing him so tenderly and-

Sonny’s hand was back on his cock.

Gentle, forming a grip at the base and stroking upward.  His way was slicked with lube and precome and the sweat of Rafael’s trembling body as he jerked against his bonds.  In reflex only, not because he truly wanted out of them.  It was such a light touch, not something that would do much any other time, but Rafael had been so close for so long and now his dick gave a firm throb as though it would take hardly another graze before he came.  He tried to arch into the touch, to buck away from the oversensitivity, but the rope held him in place.  At the mercy of the man he loved.

“Tell me if you’re gonna come, Rafael,” Sonny warned, his voice a low whisper.  

“Yes,” he murmured and now his eyes really did close, his only way of warding off the impending orgasm.  

“Yes, you’ll tell me?” Sonny asked, “Or yes, you’re gonna come?”

“Yes.”

Sonny’s knee pressed further in, the pressure more intense now.

“Yes what, Rafael?”

Sonny gripped him tighter, moved a little faster.  

Rafael breathed out a low wheeze and he could feel himself shaking.  

“Yes,” he rasped and felt his hands clenching into fists behind his back.  Sonny twisted his wrist and Rafael moaned so loud it was almost a scream, “ _ Yes, I’m going to come! _ ”

It was all hot, slick pleasure.

The tight drag of his cock through Sonny’s fist, the hard weight of his knee against Rafael’s balls, the lingering sweetness of Sonny’s kiss.

And then it was gone.

Then he was left aching and wanting and crying out into the still air of their kitchen, tears pricking at his eyes.  Whether it was from being overwhelmed or frustrated out of yet another climax, he wasn’t sure, but they were there all the same.  This time, though, Sonny didn’t leave him.  He didn’t back away, didn’t go back to the counter to cross his arms and wait while Rafael convulsed his way through another ruined orgasm.  He stayed close, stayed present, and shook right along with him.

“Fuck, Raf,” Sonny marveled and not for the first time Rafael felt the rigid line of Sonny’s arousal against his chest.  “Fuck, you’re killing me.”

The first strike wasn’t a strike at all - just a graze of fingers - but Rafael jerked and bucked against it anyway while his dick bobbed and drooled and he floated higher.  

The next was a light tap and he howled, pulling at his bonds.

Tears formed for real now, building at the corners of his eyes.  

Sensing that his legs were no longer an option, Sonny gripped his cock again - this time at the root, with a pressure that took his breath away and staved off his need to come for a few seconds longer.

“I want you to remember this tomorrow,” Sonny told him as he held Rafael tight at the base of his prick.  “I want you to remember every second of what this feels like.  When that jury comes back, whatever they say, I want you to feel the welts on your thighs and remember that you’re okay.  You’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, though the word had mostly lost meaning now.  All words had, save for  _ no  _ and his lover’s name.

“You don’t have to be in control, Rafael,” Sonny said, “You  _ can’t  _ always be in control.”

“Can’t…”

“It’s okay to let go sometimes,” he whispered and bestowed a kiss on Rafael’s lower lip.  “It’s  _ good  _ to give up control, to give up responsibility.  You are  _ not  _ all powerful, Rafael Barba, even if you pretend to be.”

“Yes,” Rafael breathed and Sonny’s hand started moving again.  His breath caught, his heart jolted in his chest, and a ragged cry was torn from his throat.  

Sonny graced him with a smile.

A small one, only a hint of the brightness he knew Sonny possessed, but it was enough.  

Here and now, with Sonny so close and his orgasm so far, Rafael was weak.

More than that, he’d made peace with it.

“You ready to let go for me?” Sonny asked.  

Rafael nodded.

It wasn’t good enough.

Sonny stopped.

“Tell me, Rafael,” he cajoled, low and quiet and sweet.  “Tell me you’re ready.  Tell me I can make you come.”

He gasped, groaned.

Whimpered.

“Please,” he finally managed and was rewarded instantly.  A hand in motion.  Slow, sure.  The pressure on his balls stayed light but Sonny was close so it didn’t matter.  All he needed was Sonny.  “ _ Please _ …”

“Please what, Rafael?” Sonny asked and moved faster.  

“Fuck!  God,” Rafael sobbed and locked his gaze on Sonny’s.  “God, please.  Please, I’m ready.  Please, Sonny, please.”

It was the most he’d managed to speak in almost an hour.

It was all Sonny needed.

His grip was hard, his pace slow and steady, and Rafael could feel every muscle in his body tightening.  Slowly, incrementally, until his toes had curled and his hands had fisted and every part of him trembled against Sonny.  Then he limited his range, stroking over and over just in the valley beneath his leaking head, and Rafael came, sobbing.

Shouting.

Shaking.

Shooting through Sonny’s fingers and up his chest in heavy spurts that streaked the length of his abdomen and dripped from his chin.  Tears fell from the corners of his eyes and Sonny stroked him through all of it, quiet and watchful, while Rafael surged and bucked and jerked beneath him.  Howling in ecstasy, in pain, in a euphoric combination of the two.  Sonny swiped and pulled and stroked until the very last clinging pearl of come had been wrung from Rafael, painstakingly emptying him of everything he had to give.

He stopped only when Rafael went still.

Dazed, catatonic.

Numb to the seizing of his muscles, the cool streaks of tears on his cheeks, and the crawl of come over his skin.  It was all lost.  He only barely felt Sonny relinquishing his hold to wrap his arms around Rafael’s shoulders instead.  One hand buried in his hair, tilting his head back to brush kisses over his lips, over his chin.  At the corners of his mouth and his cheeks and his damp forehead.

“I love you,” Sonny grated into his hair in between glancing kisses, “I love you so much.”

Rafael couldn’t answer.

He could only breathe and ache and throb.

Could only sit and shake as Sonny reached down to release knots, one after the other, so his restraints fell away and hit the kitchen floor.  The mask on Sonny was gone now and it was the man he loved who brought his wrists up to his mouth, bestowing kiss after kiss and massaging his hands and arms to get the circulation back.  Rafael moved them tentatively, noting the pins and needles as sensation returned.  In a moment Sonny had dropped to kneel at his feet, doing the same with his feet and ankles.  Kisses, massage.  Worship that Rafael was only beginning to process.  

He felt dizzy.

He’d no more had the thought than Sonny was standing up again, arm around his shoulders.  It must have been out loud, he realized as Sonny held him tight and tentatively hauled him out of the chair.  Rafael was surprised to find that his legs could hold him, at least relatively.  Well enough, at least, for Sonny to support most of his weight and lead him down the hall to their bedroom.  It took less than a minute for Sonny to maneuver him onto the side of the bed, pressing a bottle of water into his hand.  

It was cold.

Cold was good.

He drank almost the entire thing and after it was gone Rafael felt a little more himself.  A little closer to being in his body, able to feel Sonny’s soothing circles over the tops of his thighs.  Without even looking he knew Sonny was staring at the marks he’d left, at the patches of red swelling he’d wear for a day or two before it faded.  He’d be sore tomorrow, maybe the day after, and then the only proof of tonight would be the hardon he got every time he thought about it, which he would.

Frequently.

“You alright?” Sonny asked hoarsely, voice breaking.  

“Perfect,” Rafael reported.

He meant it.  

He felt… lighter.  

“If I hurt you, if I-”

“You didn’t.”  His voice was steadier than he felt, but he was sure.  Sonny could never hurt him, not when this was something he’d asked for.  “Thank you, Sonny.”

Beautiful blue eyes darted up to meet his.

“My mind is… a difficult place to be sometimes,” he said quietly and covered Sonny’s hand with his over his naked thigh, “I t’s stressful and anxious and I have more fears than I do certainties, depending on the day.   This, tonight…  _ you _ … you make it easier.  You only ever make it better.”

Sonny nodded, even looked like he might believe him.  

“Okay,” he said gently.  “Then it was worth it.”

Rafael grinned.

“Come up here and I’ll show you just how worth it,” he offered, leaning back so that the low lamplight bounced off the drying ejaculate on his skin.  He watched as Sonny stood slowly, eyes glued to Rafael’s body.  

He licked his lips, hesitating. 

Undoubtedly doing some mental calculations, wondering if Rafael would be too sensitive to let Sonny fuck him.

Rafael had no problem making that decision for him.

“What are you waiting for, Detective?” he asked and wiped a finger over the angle of his chin, collecting a cooled bead of come before pressing it into his mouth.  “I don’t have all night.”

Sonny reached for his belt buckle before he’d even swallowed. 


	19. I'm Always Tired, but Never of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonny gets a surprise afternoon off and a surprise guest to go with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by the marvelous, brilliant, stunning barbaxcarisi - prompt given for follower appreciation. 
> 
> "I'm always tired, but never of you."

Something had to give at some point, he guessed.  

If he had to choose, he was glad it was his body.

It had been a long week - a long  _ month  _ \- and Sonny had crossed over from tired to exhausted about six weeks ago.  It had been case after case, trial after trial, and he had enough vacation days to buy him a year abroad at his great-grandparents’ old cottage near Genoa, but it wasn’t fair to leave Fin and Amanda to fend for themselves.  Not to mention the Lieu, who had been in before the rest of them every day for two weeks.  He was by no means the worst off, but it was appreciated all the same when Olivia kicked him out of the precinct and told him to go home.

At noon.

On a Thursday.

Sonny had never won the lottery - hell, he’d never  _ played  _ the lottery - but if he did he imagined it would feel something like walking through his front door in the middle of the day with no expectation of walking out of it again for another eighteen hours.    

So he hung his coat, locked his badge and gun away.  Shirked his jacket and vest and tie, toed off his dress shoes, and found himself in the shower before he’d even made the conscious decision to take one.

Hot water had always been a weakness of his.

In high school he’d always woken up hours before everyone else in the house just to take an uninterrupted shower, water a touch under scalding.  Hot enough to turn him a bright crimson, hot enough to sear away the last vestiges of sleep.  

Now he slipped under it like it was a childhood hiding place, just waiting for him to do everything else before returning to the fold.  It took a few minutes but slowly the knots in his back and shoulders began to unwind, loosened with heat and Sonny’s slow stretching as he tested his range of motion.  He washed the gel from his hair, the stiffness from his neck.  By the time he reached for the soap his eyelids were drooping and a yawn stretched his jaw wide.

At the last minute he deviated away from his own bottle, the plain green plastic stark on the white shower caddy, and reached instead for his husband’s.

Rafael bought the good stuff, he reasoned.

The smell was stronger, the lather richer.  It left Sonny’s skin softer.  It also had the added benefit of smelling like Rafael, which was more comforting than anything in that moment.  Sonny worked it into his skin, washed away the strain of the day, and then stepped back under the spray to rinse it off.  Every passing moment lulled him further and when he finally cut the water and reached for his towel, the only consistent thought in his head was that of sleep.  Of a long early afternoon nap that would ease some of the exhaustion in his bones and lighten the circles under his eyes.  

He rubbed the towel over his head, combed the tangles out, and wrapped the plush fabric around his waist.  It hung low on his hips but it didn’t matter, knowing even now that he would only be in it long enough to find a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt.  Or so he thought, until he went back into their bedroom to realize that the dresser was all the way on the other side of the room and their bed was much closer.

In a few hours he’d be hearing about putting his wet hair on the pillows but it didn’t matter then, not when he could get into bed and sprawl as much as he wanted.  

No one there to argue.

No one there to criticize.

No one with stunning green eyes and a body made for temptation to lift an eyebrow and ask if there weren’t better things they could doing with an afternoon off.

“Sonny?”

Wait, what?

He picked his head up and his husband was standing in their bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame with a wry grin.

“What’d you say?” Sonny asked.

“I said, aren’t there better things we could be doing with an afternoon off?” he repeated.  “Or are giving our pillowcases water stains how you prefer to relax when you’re playing hookie?”

“You know me,” Sonny replied, watching as Rafael took off his jacket, “I’m a partier.”

“One of the more ridiculous things about you,” his husband snarked, pulling his tie loose and setting it to the side.  Sonny admired the view as he took off his waistcoat, his shoes.  Popped open the top button of his shirt.  

Casual Rafael, such as it were, had always been a weakness of his.  

His weakness was currently circling the end of the bed to crawl in next to him.  

Laying on his side, sidling up close so they were almost eye to eye.  

Rafael was gorgeous.

“You look like hell,” Rafael told him and an undignified snort tore itself from Sonny’s throat.  “What?”

“I was just thinking about how good you look and this is how you repay me?” he laughed but hummed his appreciation when Rafael lowered a single fingertip to trace a stray water droplet up the line of his sternum.  “I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

Rafael rolled his eyes.  “Considering your temper lasts all of three seconds, I think I’ll manage.”

“You underestimate me.”

“I overestimate you.”

“What are you doing home?” Sonny asked and tried to force his desire to sleep to the side.  It was so rare that they had these kind of moments, particularly recently.  “Did Carmen finally reach the end of her rope and lock you out of your own office?”

“Hardly,” he replied, scowling, and Sonny wanted to kiss him.  “Liv texted me, told me you were sent home.”

“Mmm.”

“I was worried.”

“No need,” Sonny said on a long exhale, “I’m perfect.”

“You’re okay?” Rafael asked and now he could hear the thread of tension in his husband’s voice, hidden under the arguments.  Rafael was warm and solid next to him, Rafael was worried about him, and Sonny couldn’t imagine being happier.  “The last few weeks have been awful, I know, but-”

“But I’m okay.  I promise.”  He looked up and afforded Rafael with the brightest smile he could manage.  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“If only I could manage to be as lackadaisical about burnout as you are,” he snarked and Sonny only grinned wider.  

“I’m not burned out.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Mmm,” Sonny mused, considering.  

He’d had vague ideas of a nap, and then takeout and the Food Network, but then Rafael removed his touch from Sonny’s chest and instead ran graceful fingers through the damp wave of his hair.  Fingertips dragging along his scalp, and a bone-deep shiver worked over his body in a wave.  

His eyes fell closed and some sound must have escaped, because Rafael chuckled.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know, I forgot,” he said and turned his head into Rafael’s hand, a silent plea for him to continue.  “I was going to say something about food and terrible TV but I lost my train of thought.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Rafael asked and Sonny shook his head.

“Never,” he answered, eyes slowly opening.  Rafael was close, so close, and the hand through his hair never stopped, even as the man wielding it raised an eyebrow.

“You’re tired,” he argued.

“I’m always tired,” Sonny replied with a hint of a smile, “But never of you.”

“You’re a sap,” Rafael grumbled but he came a little closer.  Pressed himself flush against Sonny’s side, twirled one errant strand of hair between long fingers.  

“You are too.”

“I am not.”

“You are,” Sonny insisted and let his eyes fall closed again, “You just show it differently than I do.”

“Oh?”  Rafael asked, clearly amused.  “How so?”

“Like right now.  Laying in bed with your husband on a weekday afternoon and playing with my hair instead of trying to take advantage.”

His husband snorted.

“Only because I’m not sure you’d stay conscious long enough to get to the good part,” he muttered and Sonny couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped his throat.  

“We’re already at the good part,” he confessed and slowly Rafael’s fingers started to twirl again.  He sighed, feeling that warm darkness creeping up again.  “This is the best part, if you ask me.”

Rafael huffed a laugh and Sonny felt lips press to his temple.

“Sap,” his husband repeated but it was too late.  Sonny was too happy and too sleepy to worry about the insult.  

“I love you,” he murmured instead and didn’t even have to open his eyes to know that Rafael was smiling - against his will, maybe, but definitely smiling.

“I love you more,” Rafael breathed.

Sighing, Sonny turned into his husband’s warmth.

_ Impossible _ .


	20. Sonny's Kink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just…” He paused, took a deep breath. Squared his shoulders. “Sonny, is there something you’re into that you haven’t shared with me?”
> 
> The cop in front of him - the detective he’d watched stand up to perps in the field and on the stand alike - blanched.
> 
> His face drained of color and suddenly Rafael was convinced.
> 
> He _knew _it.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by an anon on Tumblr - "Congrats on 300 followers! I always imagined that when Sonny and Rafael get together Sonny has a hard time talking about what he wants in bed and his kinkier fantasies. Could you write a Drabble for that?"
> 
> Many thanks to Robin Hood, who provided a giant chunk of dialogue for this and helped me stay on track while writing it. 
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

_ You’re being ridiculous,  _ Rafael scoffed internally, taking a long pull from his beer and admiring the wide smile three feet in front of him.   _ Either you talk about this or deal with all the questions plaguing you forever.   _

“I told you the Chinese near my place was better,” the man across from him said, grinning as he picked up another piece of orange chicken.  “Just because you’re in a better neighborhood doesn’t mean the food is better.  Sometimes it’s the hole in the wall place that blows your mind.”

“Mmm.”

It was hardly a response but his mind was firmly situated elsewhere.  Notably, on the bedroom just down the hall where he’d spent roughly half his free time for the last few months.  Rafael didn’t even have to look through the door to know the sheets were navy, tucked into hospital corners because it was required growing up and the man in front of him had no inclination to deviate as an adult.  He knew that just like he knew that after dinner and maybe another beer his partner would suggest some terrible TV and Rafael would suggest they skip the pretense and go straight to bed - and Rafael would win.  

“I was thinking,” he said suddenly, setting his bottle down.  

Sonny looked up at him from across the table, chopsticks halfway to his mouth.  

“Oh yeah?” his date asked, “What about?”

The detective was comfortable enough now, at least, that no hint of nerves marred the smooth skin between his eyebrows.  

They’d been dating for three months - successfully, Rafael liked to believe - and it was incredible to him just how easily the two had managed to fit together.  They’d never missed a beat.  They worked, kept it professional, and then met up somewhere for dinner every other night.  They had sex,  _ good  _ sex, and stayed the night.  It was the most effortless arrangement Rafael had ever managed with another human being in his life.  

So why were these niggling doubts popping up, over and over?

"Is this...us....working for you?" Rafael asked.

Sonny blinked up at him, mouthful of lo mein halfway to his mouth. "Huh?"

"You know, us."

"Is us working for me?" Sonny asked through his mouthful of food, still looking confused, and Rafael rolled his eyes, beginning to regret bringing this up at all.

"That's not even English," he said impatiently. "I mean our relationship. I want to know if you think our relationship is working."

Sonny stared at him. "You want to know if I think our relationship is working?" he repeated slowly, his tone pitching it as a question.

Rafael rolled his eyes again and tamped down the instinct to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Listen, I know that I joke that I'm only dating you because you're pretty, but this isn't a Bar-exam question, Detective."

"Well, good, because I definitely didn't study," Sonny said, breaking into a grin and reaching out to snag a bite of Rafael's food with his chopsticks. "But, uh, everything's fine."

Rafael frowned. "Just fine?"

“Yeah.  Fine.  Fine is good, right?”

“Fine is… fine,” he supposed and made a face.  “This is going nowhere.”

“You think we’re going  _ nowhere _ ?”

“No!”  Rafael scrubbed a hand over his face and cursed the fact that he’d started this conversation in the first place.  “Jesus.  This is a disaster.”

“Raf, if there’s something on your mind, you know you can tell me right?” he asked, waving his chopsticks around.  Rafael watched an errant grain of rice flew somewhere near the sink.  “I meant, I realize communication isn’t exactly a strength of yours-”

“Excuse me?”

“-but I like to think I’m someone you can talk to.”

“I just…”  He paused, took a deep breath.  Squared his shoulders.  “Sonny, is there something you’re into that you haven’t shared with me?”

The cop in front of him - the detective he’d watched stand up to perps in the field and on the stand alike - blanched.

His face drained of color and suddenly Rafael was convinced.

He  _ knew  _ it.

“What is it?” he asked while Sonny trained his attention back on the food in front of him.  Repositioning it rather than eating.  

“Raf…”

“No, Sonny, you can talk to me about this,” he said and set down his own utensils in favor of covering Sonny’s hand with his own.  The most comfort he could offer, hoping Sonny would be able to interpret it himself.  “We’ve been in a relationship for months.  I know it hasn’t been formally discussed, but I’m certain neither of us are seeing other people.  If there’s something you want to try, or to share with me, I hope you know you can.”

“You say that…”

“I mean that.”  Rafael stood, pushing all the food out of the way to perch on the corner of Sonny’s kitchen table.  Close.  Close enough to feel his warmth, close enough to draw up the baby blues that had suckered him in the first place.  “I realize this is personal.  Intensely personal.  But if there’s something I can do to make this work even better than it already does, I want to do it.”

Color rose high on Sonny’s cheeks.  

God, how embarrassing could it be?

“Voyeurism?” Rafael guessed and watched as Sonny balked.  “Exhibitionism?  Role play?  BDSM?”

The thought of Sonny handcuffing him started a thread of heat through his veins and he tamped it down, knowing there were other opportunities that were far more appropriate.  Sonny, on the other hand, sat frozen.  Watching his face carefully but giving no sign whatsoever that Rafael had hit on something close to the truth.

“Toys?  Breathplay?” he offered, venturing into kinkier waters.  “Filming yourself?  Pain?  Orgasm denial?”

Sonny looked disturbed.

He may have ventured too far.

“Rafael, is this… is all that what  _ you’re  _ into?” Sonny asked gently, expression guarded.  Undoubtedly making a calculation about what was and wasn’t tolerable had Rafael been interested in any of the above.

"What?  No, I-"

"Is this, what we've been doing, not doing it for you?"

"Of course it is.  I only thought-"

"-you thought I was into  _ that _ ?"

Rafael took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I have no idea what you're into," he said patiently.  "You have expressed little or no feelings whatsoever about our sex life beyond ambivalent satisfaction and normally that would worry me, except for my certainty that you're at least into  _ me _ .  I just wanted to check in and make sure you were satisfied."

Sonny visibly balked.

"You're joking, right?"  When Rafael didn’t answer he saw fit to continue.  “Rafael, I’m frigging thrilled just to be with you at all, okay?  Every time we do this, every time you let me touch you, it’s like I won the lottery.  And if I haven’t been communicating that… it’s because I don’t want to scare you off.”

It was Rafael’s turn to be stunned.

“What are you talking about?”

Sonny flushed a deeper shade of red and said, “I’m not… into any of that stuff.  I mean, I’ll try anything once so if any of that did it for you I’d at least be willing to try, but that’s not me.  My kink, or whatever you’d call it, is you.  You drive me out of my mind, Raf.”

He sat up, ventured one hand to reach out and cover the top of Rafael’s thigh.

“God, the way you look.  The way you carry yourself.  The way you smart off to pretty much anyone, regardless of position or circumstance,” he said, chuckling lightly.  “You’re gorgeous, you’re accomplished.  You’re brilliant.  You’re kind, even if you try and hide it.  Just… all of it.  All of it is my kink.  And I’ve been doing my damnedest to keep you from figuring that out.”

“Why?” Rafael breathed.  “Why try and hide that you’re attracted to me?”

“Because if I touched you like I really wanted to, if I talked to you like I really wanted to,” he said and met Rafael’s assessing gaze, “You’d run out that door and I’d never get to touch you again.  And I couldn’t deal with that.”

“I wouldn’t,” he insisted and Sonny gave a dry laugh.  

“You would,” he countered.  “I talked to Rita about you.”

“You  _ what _ ?!”

“I know you guys have history, not that I pried that deep,” he said with a sigh.  “I wanted to know what you liked, what you did for fun.  I was trying to figure out places to take you for our first date but you know what she told me?”

“I’m afraid to find out.”

“She told me that Rafael Barba didn’t ‘date,’” Sonny told him, “And that if I had any grand romantic notions I might as well forget them now.”

Rafael grumbled low in his chest.  

“So maybe, when I found myself lucky enough to get you into bed, I held back a little of what I was actually feeling,” he explained and Rafael wanted to  _ murder  _ Rita Calhoun.  “It’s not because I’m secretly a deviant, it’s not because you’re not enough for me all on your own.  It’s because you’re so much more than anything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then my advice, romantic or legal, is to never listen to Rita,” he said and took Sonny’s hand, the one resting on his thigh, and laced their fingers together.  “Because not even the deviant stuff could have compelled me to leave.”

Sonny looked doubtful for only a moment, then he broke into a wide smile.

All straight white teeth and pink lips and blue eyes.

It made his heart pound, his lungs catch.

Maybe Rafael had a kink, too.

“Come on,” he said and reached forward to wrap Sonny’s tie around his fist.  “I think I’m done with dinner.”

“You sure you don’t want to watch TV?” Sonny offered kindly.  “I bet we could find a Property Brothers rerun, if you were interested.”

Sonny arched a brow but had flushed nicely, knowing already this was an argument he was more than willing to lose.

“Another time,” he said and drew Sonny closer while he bent at the waist to bring their lips together.  “I feel like exploring a little bit of this new side of you.”

“Not new,” Sonny corrected and kissed him.  Longer, this time.  Tongue teasing at the seam of his lips.  “Not even remotely new.”

“New to me, then,” Rafael corrected with a smirk.  “What are you waiting for, Detective?  Take me to bed already.”

Sonny stood so fast he nearly toppled the chair.

He reached for Rafael’s hips, dragging him to the edge of the table and moving to stand between his parted legs.  

“Next time,” he promised with another kiss, “I figure we can test out this table first.”


	21. More Dancer AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back forever ago I wrote a dancer AU that's earlier in this collection. This is a sequel to that, set a few months later. All the love in the world to blav527, who requested this. <3333

Sonny Carisi was gorgeous.

Tall and fair, with skin that pinked under Rafael’s gaze and eyes the color of flawless aquamarine.  A quick mind, a loud mouth, and spine enough to back it up. Hair a kaleidoscopic array of burnished gold to tarnished silver to deep, raw honey.  Rafael had been watching him for months, long before the fateful night when he realized that Sonny wasn’t Amanda’s partner. Before that it had been a guilty pleasure.  Something taken in surreptitious glances and long drinks of study while the man’s back was turned, only barely managing to convince himself that he could feel guilty for objectifying his business partner’s significant other.  

After that night, the views changed.

After that night Rafael knew Sonny was looking back.  

He probably should have noticed before, but the damage was done and after their win it didn’t matter - he’d pulled Sonny onto the dance floor, into his arms, and they’d been together since.  Of course, Sonny was in his arms again tonight and it had less to do with romance and more to do with outright exasperation.

“So on the beat your right foot will go back and my left will go forward.  On the next beat it will be the opposite, your left foot forward and my right will go back.”

“Raf-”

“No, don’t argue, just listen to me.  Stop thinking and move when I tell you, got it?”

Sonny leveled painfully blue eyes on him.  “Bossy much?”

Rafael raised an eyebrow.  “Is that a complaint?”

In less than a second their bodies were pulled flush, the width of Sonny’s hand wide between his shoulder blades.  

“Not a bit.”

Rafael smirked.

Sonny’s sister was getting married in two weeks and wanted to impress her guests with a theme.  And a themed dance - salsa, of all things, much to literally everyone’s horror. It had taken until very recently for Sonny to start to worry, putting an unreasonable amount of trust in the fact that his boyfriend was a competitive dancer with more than one title under his belt.  What he hadn’t planned, of course, was how uncoordinated he was. How very little Rafael’s patience really stretched. How their lessons either ended in shouting or sex, if not both, and Sonny was no closer to knowing how to salsa than he had been two weeks before.

A fact Rafael hardly lamented, not with Sonny pressed so close and smelling like cologne and clean skin and the red wine they’d had with dinner.

He was happy to be here.

For another second, anyway, until Sonny disobeyed a direct order and brought his foot down on Rafael’s toe rather than moving it backwards.

His smirk transformed into a grimace and he hissed a breath through his teeth.

“You realize that at some point I’m going to assume you’re doing this on purpose,” Rafael told him.

“You know I’m not,” Sonny complained, looking perfectly miserable.

“Logically, maybe.  No one could be this  _ intentionally  _ clumsy.  Unfortunately for you, searing pain overrides my logic.”

“Oh come on,” Sonny scoffed unhappily and tried to drop Rafael’s arms, stopped when Rafael only held him tighter, “You’re being dramatic.”

“Says the man who’s stepped on my toes no fewer than twenty times in the last hour,” Rafael shot back, only barely suppressing a smile.  Of course Sonny hadn’t managed to hurt him - not really, anyway - but exasperation was a good look for the man in front of him so he leaned in.  “I had no idea the depth of your ineptitude when we started this. You’re a terrible student.”

“There are no terrible students,” Sonny shot back, “Just terrible teachers.”

He probably had a point.

Rafael had been teaching adult classes in Amanda’s studio for almost six months and while it was enjoyable, while he knew what he was talking about, instruction did not come naturally.  Rafael was more than capable of propelling his own body into a series of steps ingrained into him for so many years now that it hardly beared remembering. Giving into his own muscle memory and training another body to do the same were two different matters entirely, and the latter was not his forte - even when it was a body he knew so well.

Every narrow slope and plane and angle.

Rafael had spent every available moment learning the strength contained in the lithe muscles under his fingers, knew how Sonny could bend and stretch and take them both infinitely higher.  He knew every heartbeat, every breath, and what they meant. It was all knowledge gained over months of late nights, talking and laughing, making it only halfway through dinner before needing to feel skin.  Of waking up with the sensation of Sonny’s lips on his neck, over his heart. Rafael wasn’t sure he’d ever known a body other than his own in the way he now knew Sonny’s and now here he was, entirely at the mercy of it.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Sonny wondered, bringing Rafael back to the present.  “I was insulting you, remember?”

His voice was low, rough.

Undoubtedly he’d managed to catch the look in Rafael’s eyes.

And even if he didn’t, the way Rafael’s eyes flitted to admire his partner’s lips were indication enough of where his mind had gone.  

“Really, Rafael,” Sonny admonished playfully, “We’re working here, remember?”

“ _ I’m _ working,” he corrected, “You’re stomping around my mat with your massive feet, sacrificing my toes in the process.”

“You saying I got big feet?” 

“Yes.  I said that literally just now, or were you not listening?”

“I can’t believe I put up with you,” Sonny told him, shaking his head sadly.  Rafael only narrowed his eyes and spun them. Quickly and without warning, without any help from the gangly chef in his arms.  They turned in tight circles until they reached the end of the practice mat, Rafael’s heels ever so slightly floating off the edge as he brought them to an abrupt stop while Sonny gasped in a few quick breaths.  

“Christ,” he huffed, “Was that necessary?”

“Absolutely,” Rafael answered and let go of Sonny’s arms to place two fingers on his chest, just over his heart.  All it took was a gentle shove - only a hint of pressure - and Sonny fell backwards. Back hitting the mat, head still spinning and looking up at Rafael with accusatory eyes.  At least until Rafael moved to stand over him, feet planted on either side of Sonny’s lean hips. 

“You pushed me,” he said but his hands were already reaching out, training up the backs of Rafael’s calves.  

“You mouthed off.”

Sonny grinned.  

“Can’t help it,” he allowed and gripped the taut muscle of Rafael’s thighs in each hand.  His voice turned low, sweet. “Get down here, Rafi. I’ll make it up to you.”

Rafael sucked in a quick breath while Sonny’s left hand ventured higher, up his inseam and into dangerous waters.   

“We’re working.”

“No, we’re flirting.”

He cocked an eyebrow.  

And really, he couldn’t argue.  

“The wedding-”

“Forget the wedding,” Sonny said and brushed daring knuckles up under his sac while Rafael’s breathing grew heavier.  “We’ve got time. Time that can be better spent if you’d just get down here and let me touch you.”

And really, who could say no to that?

 

**…**

 

Later, when they’re both breathing heavy and Rafael has forgotten what the world looks like without stars in his eyes, Sonny ran long fingers through the gray at Rafael’s temples while his heart hammered under Rafael’s ear.  

“We’re going to have to Lysol the mat,” Rafael commented brusquely, ever the romantic even while firmly in his afterglow.  Sonny hummed a mild agreement but his attention was elsewhere, pressing breathless kisses onto the top of Rafael’s head while sweat cooled on his chest.   

“Sonny?”

“Hmm.”

“I’m happy.”

“What?” he asked, slightly slurring.  

“I said I’m happy,” Rafael repeated and sat up to rest on his elbow at Sonny’s side.  “With this, I mean. With us.”

Sonny’s smile would have lit the city for a month.

Every word he didn’t say worried Rafael, sent him spiraling into the worst case scenario, but Sonny seemed oblivious.  He only turned on his side and cupped the side of Rafael’s face, brushing a sweet, indulgent kiss across his lips. And just when Rafael couldn’t take it, just when he was sure Sonny would segue into needing some space, his perfect mouth parted and he stole the breath straight from Rafael’s chest.

“Move in with me,” Sonny breathed against his lips.  

This time, it was Rafael who was speechless.

“Come on,” he argued, interspersed with more kisses, “My place is bigger anyway, and it’s closer to the studio and the restaurant.  My shower is better. You can bring your fancy coffee pot and I’ll put my old, ugly one away.”

Reeling, Rafael huffed a laugh and kissed Sonny back for the first time in long minutes.  They were chest to chest, hip to hip, arms and legs tangled with bare skin slicked with sweat and drawn together seemingly of their own volition.  

“You’re making a very practical argument,” he said, bracing himself against the happiness welling up in his chest.  “Are those the only reasons?”

“Move in with me because I love you.”

Sonny wrapped an arm around Rafael’s shoulders and upper back to hold him in place, so he could stare into Rafael’s eyes and be faced with just how much those words were true.

“Move in with me because I’m crazy about you, because meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me.  Move in with me because I think we’re perfect together,” he continued and Rafael’s heart threatened to burst. “Move in with me because every morning I don’t wake up next to you is wasted and I’ll never get it back.  Move in with me because I love you and I want to show you that every chance I get.”

Rafael grinned, nodding before he’d even realized he was going to answer.

“Yes,” he breathed and it was possible his heart was beating harder now than it had a few minutes earlier with Sonny’s mouth around him.  “Yes, I’ll move in with you.”

Sonny beamed.

Rafael kissed him.

“But the old, ugly coffee pot is getting thrown out completely.  It gurgles and whines when you brew it, for God’s sake,” he argued and a laugh punched its way out of Sonny’s chest before he laughed and kissed Rafael again, rolling them over on the mat and breathing into the angle of Rafael’s neck.

“Whatever you want, babe,” he said and sucked a kiss into his collarbone.  “Whatever you want.”


	22. Carisi Speaks Italian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by seren-pen on Tumblr. 
> 
> "I saw that you were taking Barisi prompts! I love the idea of Carisi being fluent in Italian and using it to calm down a witness while Barba has heart palpitations in the corner desperately trying to fight down his attraction to the whole thing."

This is a problem, Rafael realizes a little too late.

A big one.

It was a stroke of immense luck, at first - the fact that Carisi is Italian was a boon in the face of an interpreter shortage.  The victim and her friends were visiting from Rome for the summer, their English passable but not good enough to take an accurate statement.  Luckily for them, they had a detective who frequently mentioned being Italian - if  _ frequently _ meant several times a week, whether or not anyone asked.  He’d tried to fight, tried to argue, but Rafael had shoved him into the room without another argument.  This girl had evidence that had the potential to put their rapist near their victim, and he wasn’t going to let something like Carisi’s stage fright get in the way of that.

Carisi was at the conference table with a teenage girl speaking so quickly that the detective occasionally had to gesture for her to slow down while Rafael kept his distance, sitting mutely in the couch under the window a few feet away.  Hysterical would have been hyperbole but not by much - she had a tissue in one hand and was waving them both frantically, while speaking. It was a wonder Carisi dared get close at all, considering he did the same thing. Considering the physical closeness Italians seemed to prefer when speaking, it was a risky move.

Would they hit each other, Rafael wondered?  Or would they take turns? 

Then, the girl laughed.

It was a loud, startled sound accompanied by a sniffle and Carisi’s sheepish grin as he shrugged his shoulders and smiled back.  It was enough, it seemed, because the panic died down and when the girl wiped her eyes again it was with a watery smile. Carisi spoke again, this time in a hushed tone that Rafael had to lean closer to hear.  Spanish was similar enough, he could figure some things out on his own, but he sure as hell couldn’t brace himself against the way Carisi’s tongue danced smooth and decadent over rounded syllables and sharp taps of sound on his palate.  

Rafael should know better.  He’d been the unwitting victim of a language kink more times than he could count - lovers wanting him to speak Spanish in bed, calling him  _ Papi  _ despite his obvious distaste - but damn it, if Carisi’s voice was nice in everyday English it was practically  _ delicious _ in Italian.  Deeper than usual, kept to a low murmur that would be all to easy to imagine in his ear.  With Carisi’s hands on his hips, with his cologne light and fresh in his nose. Carisi would crowd him close, back to the wall, lips on his jaw and then his temple.  Mouth to the lobe of his ear, voice little more than a husky whisper…

This was such a bad idea.

“Counselor?” 

The voice in question drew his attention back to the present and he answered with a short, “Hmm?”

Carisi was standing, slender body only ever highlighted by his tailored suit in pale colors.  The detective offered the girl a smile and the universal sign for “one minute” before straightening and gesturing for Rafael to follow him out of the room.  Rafael had no choice to follow, internally marveling his good luck that the ill-advised fantasy in his head hadn’t had the time to continue. 

“Did you get anything?” he asked as Carisi held the door open for him to pass through and then closed it behind him.  

“Sure,” the man shot back with a scoff, “I got a really good lasagna recipe.  You know I don’t speak Italian, right?”

Rafael’s face fell.

“What?” he asked, baffled.  

“I don’t speak Italian.  I mean, not anymore than the bits and pieces I picked up from my grandparents, anyway,” Carisi allowed and put his hands on his hips.  

“Then what was all that?!”

“That was me stumbling and her finding it funny.”  He looked Rafael over and frowned. “Hey, counselor, you’re looking a little flushed.  You alright? You’re not getting sick are you?”

_ Sick.   _

That was absolutely the problem.  

“Maybe,” he said noncommittally and bit his bottom lip - an action he didn’t miss Carisi’s eyes following.  “We still don’t have an interpreter to talk to this girl, not with Ms. Russo still overseas.”

“Right,” Carisi confirmed, “So what do you want to do?”

He sighed and fought the urge to run his fingers through his hair.  

“Go call your grandparents, I guess.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [TINSTAAFL (There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216537) by [MJ (mjr91)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ)




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